Photo caption: Gael Garcia Bernal in MAGELLAN. Courtesy of Janus Films.
The historical epic Magellan tells the story of explorer/conquistador Ferdinand Magellan’s interactions with people of the Philippines, and most of the movie is set in the Philippines. Magellan begins in 1511, a decade before his most famous voyage, with Magellan serving a more senior Portuguese conquistador. Then the film touches briefly on his life back in Portugal before, again, briefly showing him leading a Spanish-sponsored voyage back to the Philippines.
The strongest element of Magellan is the depiction of historical events from the points of view of both Magellan and of the indigenous Filipinos. I also appreciated Magellan’s equating the superstitious qualities of the Spanish Catholic veneration of religious objects and the indigenous tribe’s idol worship.
Most of us know that Magellan commanded the first expedition to sail around the globe. As Magellan shows, Magellan himself didn’t survive to return home. As Magellan does not point out, a surviving Spanish crew led by one of Magellan’s subordinates did complete the groundbreaking voyage.
Magellan also gets credit for discovering what we know as the Strait of Magellan, the safest navigable route between Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This is essential history, but it is only possibly referenced in Magellan in a scene where the sailors are all terrified of stormy seas and Magellan isn’t doing anything about it.
Many of the stills from the movie illustrate Magellan on a sailing ship, but I chose to post the image above because very little of this movie about the world’s most famous sailor is at sea.
Magellan is played by Gael Garcia Bernal, a fine actor and a magnetic presence, who isn’t asked to do much here. I doubt that the real Magellan was as passive as the character is written here.
Renowned Filipino writer-director Lav Diaz tells this story in two hours and forty minutes of intermittently interesting action. Diaz is an intentional practitioner of a cinematic style called slow cinema, which I am coming to loathe. I actually enjoy much longer shots and much more deliberate pacing than do most, but I just can’t take slow cinema, which feels to me like it is violating the rhythm of storytelling for no reason.
Magellan seemed longer than 140 minutes to me. I found the pace to range between insufferable and excruciating.
Magellan was the Philippines submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. It is streaming on the Criterion Channel.
Photo caption: Zendaya and Robert Pattinson in THE DRAMA. Courtesy of A24.
In The Drama, the darkest romantic comedy I’ve ever seen, Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson) are getting married in a week. They’re out with their best friend couple, finalizing the wedding’s catering and wine menu, when the four, in their cups, play a game that changes everything.
Each of the four undertakes to share the worst thing they’ve ever done. Emma goes last, and confesses to something shocking. This is not something that can be explained away as a youthful indiscretion. It is something that calls Emma’s very sanity and humanity into question. The friends are horrified, but Charlie is rocked with the possibility that his adorable bride-to-be is a dangerous psychopath.
Wedding week continues, with the couple going through all the banal tasks – reviewing the wedding photographer’s picture list, approving the flowers, meeting the DJ, etc. All while Charlie is more and more terrified of Emma.
Charlie, not strong of character to begin with, starts to vibrant with stress and then decompensates into a human puddle. Emma, on the other hand, is just trying to get past her embarrassment until she plunges into terror that her very worst secret is going public. Believe me, this really IS a romantic comedy, but there are elements of psychological thriller along the way.
Both Pattinson and Zendaya are excellent as two people trying to cling to situations that may not be savable. Zendaya is just so impressive – a multi-platform superstar who started making Spiderman movies at 21 and still is choosing thoughtful, interesting work like this and Challengers. Other fine performances include:
Mamoudou Athie, whom I just saw as a menacing criminal in Wardriver, as Charlie’s very grounded best buddy;
Alana Haim, reversing the goodhearted charisma of her character in Licorice Pizza, as the friend hiding her inner malice;
Hailey Gates, hilarious as Charlie’s assistant Mischa, whose talents do not include connecting the dots.
The Drama is the work of writer-director Kristofffer Borgli, who also created the brilliant and utterly original comedy Dream Scenario. It’s in theaters now.
Photo caption: Chris Cooper and Elizabeth Pena in LONE STAR.
On April 9, Turner Classic Movies airs the 1996 John Sayles masterpiece Lone Star, a multi-generational story of mystery, corruption, racism, forbidden love and redemption. The ensemble cast is phenomenal: Chris Cooper, Elizabeth Pena, Matthew McConaughey, Kris Kristofferson, Miriam Colon, Joe Morton, Ron Canada, Frances McDormand, Clifton James, Stephen Mendillo, Tony Amendola. And the best part is the elegant storytelling of writer-director John Sayles.
The story is set in a small Texan town on the Mexican border. Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) has returned to his hometown to serve as Sheriff. He hasn’t been in his hometown for many years because of his estrangement from his father, Buddy Deeds, the recently deceased previous Sheriff. The decidedly old school Buddy Deeds, who ran the county for decades, was respected and beloved – even legendary. After Sam introduces himself as Sheriff Deeds to an older local woman, she responds “Sheriff Deeds is dead, honey. You just Sheriff Junior.“
Sam’s daddy issues are mirrored by those of Delmore Payne (Joe Morton), a ramrod-striaght Colonel who has been assigned to command the nearby US Army base. Del resents growing up without his father Otis (Ron Canada), who owns a roadhouse outside the town proper, and Del is eager to unleash his bitterness upon Otis.
Inevitably, Sam finds his high school sweetheart Pilar (Elizabeth Pena) and the two rekindle a bond. Their relationship had been broken up by Sam’s dad Buddy and Pilar’s mom Mercedes, and Sam and Pilar have always thought it was on racial grounds.
Elizabeth Pena and Chris Cooper in LONE STAR.
Human remains are found in the desert, and they are identified as those of Buddy’s predecessor as Sheriff, the corrupt, racist and extremely fearsome Charlie Wade (Kris Kristofferson). Wade went inexplicably missing, and he was such a despicable bully, the relieved community didn’t seem to search for him very diligently.
The investigation of Charlie’s suspicious disappearance and death fall within Sam’s authority. Sam sees this as an opportunity to tarnish Buddy’s iconic status. Probing for some dirt to besmirch his father’s name, Sam asks Otis if Buddy ever took money for a favor, and gets back, “I don’t recall a prisoner ever died in your daddy’s custody. I don’t recall a man in this county – black, white, Mexican – who’d hesitate for a minute to call on Buddy Deeds to solve a problem. More than that, I wouldn’t care to say.”
Charlie disappeared before Sam and Pilar were born, but there are folks who were around at the time, Otis for one. Mercedes (Miriam Colon) is now a local business leader. The town’s good ol’ boy mayor Hollis (Clifton James) was, like Buddy, one of Charlie’s deputies. It turns out that what happened to Charlie is not so much a mystery as a long-suppressed secret.
Kris Kristofferson in LONE STAR.
As Sam undertakes the present day investigation, we see flashbacks of the time when Charlie, as terrifying as a T-Rex, walked the earth, and we see the young Buddy (Matthew McConaughey), Hollis and Mercedes. Sayles unspools the story with live segues, in which a single camera shot shows the flashback action at a location and then shifts to the present at the same place. In Sayles hands, the technique is a seamless storytelling device, and never just a gimmick.
Along the way, Sam encounters a flood of memorable, fully fleshed out characters. especially a metal-detecting Army sergeant (Stephen Mendillo), a feisty Mexican old-timer (Tony Amendola) and Sam’s own ditzy ex-wife Bunny (Frances McDormand, in the same year as her Oscar-winning turn in Fargo).
As the story moves to its conclusion, there are two surprising revelations in the plot. And Sayles ends the film with one of the all-time best best closing lines.
Matthew McConaughey in LONE STAR.
Cooper and Pena lead a cast filled with exemplary performances. The villainous Charlie Wade is my favorite Kristofferson performance. McConaughey was essentially unknown, and Sayles said “I needed a guy who didn’t have any star weight but who had the presence to play off against Kristofferson.” That casting paid off with McConaughey playing a callow character, with just the hints of the charisma and authority that he would later grow into. Cooper, Colon and Morton all appeared in previous Sayles films.
John Sayles’ body of work is as impressive as that of any American indie film director – and more diverse: Passion Fish, Eight Men Out, Matewan, The Secret of Roan Inish and some of the most iconic Bruce Springsteen music videos. In Lone Star, racial relations on the Texas border are complicated and dynamic, just like those in urban New Jersey in that other Sayles ensemble piece City of Hope. He first became known for Return of the Secaucus 7, which was probably the model for The Big Chill and Thirtysomething.
Sayles was Oscar-nominated for the screenplays of both Lone Star and Passion Fish. The dialogue in Lone Star is exceptionally witty, and not just funny, but insightful thought-provoking. Sayles has also been a distinguished script doctor, responsible for many uncredited rewrites, such as Apollo 13. (He started out writing the screenplays for Roger Corman’s Piranha and another exploitation movie Alligator.)
Lone Star is John Sayles’ best movie and IMO the very best movie of 1996, along with Fargo and Secrets & Lies. If you miss it on TCM, you can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
Photo caption: Will Arnett in IS THIS THING ON? Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
In the romantic dramedy Is This Thing On?, Alex (Will Arnett) and Tess (Laura Dern) are suburban New Yorkers heading for an amicable divorce. They’ve been together for 26 years, married for 23, and have a pair of precocious and adorable ten-year-old sons, but the passion in the relationship has petered out. Alex, who works in finance, has become a hangdog, passively accepting household assignments from Tess. Tess, a former Olympic athlete, runs the family, but she’s suffering from some undefined deficit. They like each other, and their lives are objectively comfortable, but each is miserable, so Alex takes a tiny apartment in Manhattan.
Despairing and confused, Alex is at loose ends when, on a whim, he gets on stage at a comedy club’s open mic night. He talks about his bewilderment to an audience, and finds it gratifying. Soon, he is spending every night doing stand-up, continuing to process his feelings, and actually getting proficient at comedy. Alex has found a new passion, and it’s stand-up comedy.
Tess is finding that the mere absence of Will isn’t making her feel better either, and decides to re-enter the world of sports as a coach. When Tess finally learns about Alex’s new pursuit, the two can finally start figuring out what has been keeping them from happiness.
Laura Dern and Will Arnett in IS THIS THING ON? Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
This is a mostly funny and unusually thoughtful rom com. Arnett and the director, Bradley Cooper, co-wrote the screenplay with Mark Chapell.
Both Will Arnett and Laura Dern are exceptional as the talented and privileged Alex and Tess, who founder as a couple and as singles. Bradley Cooper is very funny as Alex’s extremely shallow actor friend.
The way that Tess finds out about Alex’s stand-up comedy is contrived, as important plot points in any rom com tend to be, but I was distracted by the actor involved, who is very, very famous for non-acting. Jeezus, that’s Peyton Manning! Manning is actually good, but his sudden appearance took me out of the movie for a bit.
The Wife, on the other hand, walked out at that point. She had previously been distracted by the lack of economic consequences to the split of the one-income family into two households.
Nevertheless, I liked Is This Thing On?, which is as funny and redemptive as most rom coms, and smarter than most of them. Is This Thing On? is included with Hulu and rentable on Amazon and AppleTV.
Photo caption: Rebecca Ferguson in MERCY. Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.
Here’s the interesting premise of the distopian AI thriller Mercy: in the near future, Los Angeles adopts a new AI-driven criminal justice system whereby a murder suspect is restrained in front of a screen, where an AI “judge” gives him the chance to prove his innocence; he is presumed guilty, and will be executed within ninety minutes unless he can lower his likelihood of guilt percentage under a numeric threshold that represents reasonable doubt. The object is to reach a fact-based conclusion quickly and with certainty, protecting the community and providing closure for victims’ loved ones. The Orwellian name for the new system is Mercy.
One of the biggest advocates of this new system is the police detective Chris (Chris Pratt), who wakes up from a blackout drunk to find himself strapped to the Mercy chair, charged with the murder of his wife. An initial review of facts demonstrate that he had the motive, means and opportunity – and things look really bad for Chris. He is being judged by an AI bot, played by Rebecca Ferguson. The bad news is that she/it is completely devoid of intuition and emotion, rigidly adhering to the programmed procedure.
The good news is that the court is a supercomputer which is able to provide Chris with INSTANT access to video from traffic cameras and security cams and police body cams, to everyone’s history of movements from cell phone tracking, al financial records, every call and text, and forensic evidence – blood, fingerprint, fiber and DNA. The key word is instant because it allows an investigation that would take days or weeks to be compressed in to just over an hour. That device also allows a whodunit story to be told in real time, which is always a plus in a movie.
Chris Pratt in MERCY. Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios.
So, essentially, the plot of Mercy is a detective procedural, but one with very high stakes (summary execution) and under extreme time pressure. That all works to heighten the thrills in this thriller.
So far, so good, but it wasn’t enough for the filmmakers who, IMO, jump the shark with some silly add-ons, which I discuss in the spoiler paragraph below.
SPOILER: The problem I have with Mercy is that Chris, beside saving himself to solve the crime, ALSO saves his daughter from a hostage situation, saves downtown LA from being blown up in a terrorist strike, solves a previously closed case and forces the discredited AI justuce system to shut itself down. As well-crafted and exciting as the movie is, that’s really excessive plot. The story got so silly that it lost me in the final 20 or so minutes.
Mercy is streaming on Amazon (included with Prime) and AppleTV.
Photo caption: Toni Servillo in LA GRAZIA. Courtesy of MUBI.
When we talk of “coming of age” movies, we usually mean those about kids or young adults experiencing life lessons for the first time. But, the more mature among us also face new realities as we age into new phases of our lives. That’s the case with Paolo Sorrentino’s lyrical La Grazia.
La Grazia is an insightful and empathetic portrait of a fictional president of Italy (Toni Servillo) in the final months of his term. He is a man of quiet and resolute competence, a jurist admired for guiding the country through six political crises. He is also staid and taciturn, a man of boring countenance (except for an his fondness of the most current pop music, including rap).
He is a lame duck and in a malaise from the loss of wife of fifty years. He’s just running out the clock. Fortunately, his daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzeti), an impressive jurist in her own right, is nudging him through his daily duties. To her frustration, he is refusing to make his final three official decisions, about whether to sign euthanasia legislation and whether to grant two pardons.
He believes that his beloved wife had an affair forty years before, and now, instead of working, he’s stewing over who was her lover.
His lethargy contrasts with the vibrant, over-the-top baroque art covering every surface of the Quirinale Palazzo, the former papal palace now the headquarters of Italy’s President. The only sparks of life come from Anna’s prodding and from dinners with the art critic Coco, his friend from grade school and his wife’s bestie (played in a charismatic performance by Milvia Marigliano).
As doggedly as the president drags his feet, we know that he will need to find a catharsis and reset his life. As he figures things out, there is a remarkable scene involving, of all things, an astronaut shedding a zero gravity tear.
Toni Servillo is excellent here as a much more decent and much less flamboyant politician than the ones he played in Sorrentino’s Il Divo and Loro. La Grazia matches up well with his Youth, another contemplation of the end of a career. As usual, Sorrentino takes full advantage of the palace interiors and Roman exteriors; visually and otherwise, Sorrentino’s masterpiece remains The Great Beauty.
Photo caption: Tommi Korpela and Pihla Viitala in THERAPY. Courtesy of Cinequest.
Beginning today, and thru midnight March 31, select films from this year’s Cinequest are now available to watch at home through Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy. The price is less than ten bucks per movie for all but two, and you can watch all of them with a $50 pass.
There’s a Spotlight section where, for $14..99, you can join others watching the film at the same time and participate in Q&A with the filmmakers. The Spotlight film I recommend is Adult Children.
Amber Gray in HEARTWORM. Courtesy of Cinequest.
The other films that I recommend are in the Cinejoy Showcase section, so you can watch them whenever convenient, for only $9.99. They include my choices for the very best of the festival:
Heartworm: Set in a near future where humans can connect to an AI-generated world indistinguishable from reality, a couple grapples with the heartbreaking death of their daughter. The mom is bravely working through her grief, trying to harness her resilience; the dad, equally shattered, has emotionally shut down. When we see the daughter, is it a flashback or a reappearance? The mom must figure out whether she has experienced a trauma-induced hallucination or a psychotic break – or whether the dad has stepped into an insidious AI pseudo-reality where their trauma didn’t happen? The distinguished Broadway actress Amber Gray, most recently Tony-nominated for Hadestown, soars as the mom, fighting fiercely for her sanity at the moment of her greatest vulnerability. This brilliantly constructed film is a striking debut feature for writer-directors Miriam Louise Arens and Mitchell Arens. World premiere.
Therapy: A husband and wife team of therapists have over-invested in a spacious seaside manor, where they are about to host a five-day couples retreat. Trouble is, the splendid but decaying estate has tapped out their finances, and their own marriage is on the rocks. What could possibly go wrong? This very funny Finnish dramedy sends up psychobabble while exploring the topics of grief, loyalty, betrayal, jealousy, disappointment and relationship fatigue. Therapy’s screenplay brims with insight, wit and humanity. Second narrative feature for writer-director Paavo Westerberg. US premiere.
Photo caption: Andrea Riseborough, Kit Rakusen, Stephan Graham and Anson Boon in HEEL. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
As the psychological thriller Heel opens, we see the feral teenage Tommy (Anson Boon) partying insatiably and behaving despicably. He is a bully, a vandal, and a hedonist who thinks of no one but himself. If he had any aspiration or cultural curiosity, he might see himself as the Malcom McDowell character in A Clockwork Orange. Addled by drugs and booze, he staggers off to pass out.
Tommy regains consciousness, and finds himself wearing a steel collar on his neck, chained to the wall of a dungeon-like basement. He doesn’t know where he is, but it’s in an isolated house in the remote English countryside. The home belongs to Chris (Stephen Graham) and Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough), who have KIDNAPPED Tommy with the intention of turning him into a good boy, a kid who is civil, respectful, considerate and responsible. Chris and Kathryn have a 10-year-old son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen), who is almost sickeningly obedient.
Yes, this is all bizarre. It is not okay to hold someone against their will, literally chained to the wall, even if Chris and Kathryn act like it’s the most normal and benevolent behavior. Even Tommy has enough awareness to label his situation a “Guantanamo”.
Chris and Kathryn hire a young, undocumented Macedonian woman, Rina (Monika Frajczyk), as a housekeeper. The family is so twisted, and Tommy is so vile, that Rina’s point of view validates the audience’ perspective.
Anson Boon in HEEL. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
What Chris and Kathryn are doing is inhumane, illegal and very, very creepy. Corporal punishment does work to modify behavior in the short term, that’s not the reason that civilized society doesn’t use it anymore. Of course, this very extreme situation is used to explore just what children need from their parents. Kids do need stability, consistency, discipline, attention and unconditional love, and Chris and Kathryn get that much right.
As unhinged as Chris and Kathryn are, they DO really care about Tommy, which drives a surprise ending.
I love Stephen Graham as an actor. His characters can be very menacing and brutish. Here, his Chris acts like he’s naturally a milquetoast, but one very determined to stay on mission; he doesn’t LIKE using an electric prod, but if he has to…
Andrea Riseborough, another actor who is always superb, is wonderful in Heel as a woman who seems at first to live in a stupor of grief, but whose agency is eventually revealed.
The folks responsible for this story, in all its bracing originality, are Polish director Jan Komasa and co-writers Barto Bartosik (his first screenplay) and Naqqash Khalid (his second). Let’s order up some more movies from these guys!
Heel was originally titled Good Boy (which would have been a much better title IMO), but it was changed to avoid confusion with another film (the horror picture with the dog’s POV).
Heel is wild, unsettling and very entertaining. Heel is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
Liana Wright-Mark in AMERICAN MUSCLE. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the taut, 80-minute neo-noir American Muscle, Ray (David Thompson) is the mechanic at an isolated auto shop in rural Kern County. Ray is in serious debt to a very serious man, but he has a scheme for raising the payoff. Trouble is, his lender’s two very scary enforcers arrive to collect the money now, and Ray doesn’t have it. Just then, Ray’s long-estranged sister Maggie (Liana Wright-Mark) shows up unexpectedly. Ray’s financial deadline is accelerated, and he is plunged into a desperate and apparently hopeless race against the clock.
The out-of-town enforcers (Gbenga Akinnabe and Brendan Sexton III), with their chattiness and intellectual curiosity, are a welcome homage to the hit men Vincent and Jules in Pulp Fiction. (And I love that they wear bolo ties with their suits!)
Thompson and Wright-Mark are excellent as siblings who have survived a grim upbringing that will either make one strong and resilient or break one into weakness. American Muscle reveals that childhood’s impact on both Ray and Maggie.
David Thompson in AMERICAN MUSCLE. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In his first feature, writer-director Joel Veach creates a vivid milieu and delivers a perfect ending. Veach understands a great truth that is also a tenet of film noir: if you’re a loser, you can always find a way to make yourself a bigger loser.
The dry emptiness of American Muscle’s Kern County (it was actually shot in Santa Clarita) makes the Bakersfield of Honey Don’t look like Mumbai.
I screened American Muscle for its world premiere at the 2026 Cinequest. A perfectly-seasoned mixture of humor, menace and cynicism, it’s ever entertaining and a first class neo-noir.
David Thompson and Liana Wright-Mark in AMERICAN MUSCLE. Courtesy of Cinequest.
In the pulsating and highly original thriller Wardriver, Cole (Dane DeHaan) is a hacker, who drives around Salt Lake City logging on to other people’s wireless networks, locating their business payrolls and draining them into his own secret accounts. He conveniently claims to only steal from banks, not people. Cole may be a professional criminal, but he is a geeky as your company’s IT guy. If you’re not already paranoid about the security of your home router, you will be.
Alarmingly, Cole finds himself entangled with a sequence of extremely dangerous bad guys, each scarier than the last. When he meets a beautiful woman who may or may not be who she says she is, his compulsion to save her puts him at even more risk. You will recognize all the elements of neo-noir here, but with a refreshingly techie flavor.
Dane DeHaan’s performance carries this well-acted film. DeHaan is always good (Kill Your Darlings, LIFE, Oppenheimer), and here his Cole struggles, relying on his wits alone, to keep things in his control. Fittingly for a noir protagonist, Cole recognizes that he is an underdog, but doesn’t grasp just how over-matched he is.
Sasha Calle in WARDRIVER. Courtesy of The Avenue.
Sasha Calle delivers just the right mix of vulnerability, sexiness and well-masked toughness as the object of Cole’s infatuation. Calle was excellent in In the Summers, an overlooked indie that made my list of Best Movies of 2024.
Mamadou Athie and William Belleau (Killers of the Flower Moon) stand out in supporting roles.
In a complete departure from her brilliant debut film Electrick Children, this time, director Rebecca Thomas works in a conventional genre and keeps the pace sizzling. The highly original techno noir screenplay was written by Daniel Casey.
I screened Wardriver for its world premiere at Cinequest, where it made my Best of Cinequest.
