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| Natasha Lyonne in Poker Face |
Leslie Iwerks' 100 Years of Warner Brothers is an uncritical and unenlightening look at the studio. A four hour commercial in the guise of a documentary. Currently streaming on Max.
Chad Stahelski's John Wick: Chapter Four is a propulsive action cartoon, the best Wick film since the original. It helps to switch off most of one's brain functions to grok the comic book action, but the film integrates its violent set pieces smartly with its scenic backdrops and is pretty well paced for a nearly three hour epic. Nearly all the new casting additions bring some humor and humanity to this mechanistic franchise: particularly Clancy Brown, Rina Sawayama, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamir Anderson, and the most charismatic cinematic canine of 2023.
Hooroo Jackson's Aimy in a Cage, from 2015, is an unsuccessful art film that shows traces of talent. The son of a painter. Jackson knows how to fill up the screen with color and objects. He needs to work on some other things though: like dialogue, characterization, blocking, and pacing. Crispin Glover, Paz de la Huerta, and Terry Moore (!) appear as special effects. The rest of the cast are hit and mostly miss in this current Tubi streamer. Hopefully, Jackson's upcoming Window Seat will show progress.
One Fine Morning is a routine Mia Hansen-Love film, but, since Ms. Hansen-Love is among our greatest working filmmakers, it is a must see. The scenario at times verges on soap opera because the director is too much of a realist to highlight the project's melodramatic aspects. However, the film contains many brilliant actorly moments that display the director's attentiveness to the primacy of individual experience: Lea Seydoux's tears of joy at receiving a text from her lover and Pascal Greggory being overcome by memories after hearing a Schubert piece stand out amidst a mundane exploration of sex and death.
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