THE HOLDOVERS

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Alexander Payne sets up a '60s era social satire that tips its hat to "The Graduate" in style, and in tone.

That's a very good thing.

Social media groupthink and MeToo victim mentality get a proper roasting.

Paul Giamatti is never better than as Paul Hunham, a private school professor with more experiences than he can remember.

Newcomer Dominic Sessa makes an auspicious debut as Angus Tully, the student burdened with being chaperoned by Professor Hunham during a long cold winter break on the school campus.

"The Holdovers" should become a holiday movie classic for audiences to return to every Thanksgiving to keep some perspective on human nature, hypocrisy, and the importance of having a warm heart and a calm mind.

Long live Paul Giamatti!

Rated R. 133 mins.

POOR THINGS

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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When I met Yorgos Lanthimos at the Fox Searchlight party for his film "The Favourite," I told him that I thought that film fell short of being as bawdy as it should have been, that he needed to lean into being much bawdier with his movies. Yorgos seems to have followed my advice.

Working from a novel by Scottish novelist Alasdair Gray, and with artistic input from the film's lead actress Emma Stone, Yorgos Lanthimos presents a captivating journey of self-discovery that necessarily involves sex, lots and lots of sex.

Oh how refreshing to see characters fucking, rather than shooting each other.

"Poor Things" coincides with Emerld Fennell's "Saltburn" in confronting Hollywood's gun-happy format with something considerably more grounded, namely the sex urge that drives people, and the social curiosity that comes along with it.

Rapturous in its outrageous designs, "Poor Things" is a wonder to behold and a balm for the soul.

Emma Stone is fearless. Willem Dafoe is exquisite, as he always is. Mark Ruffalo provides the comic timing.

Brilliant social satire arrives in spades with a movie that you may want to watch a few times, for obvious reasons.

The not-so-obvious reasons are good too.

Rated R. 141 mins.

OPPENHEIMER

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Cillian Murphy gives an incomparable virtuosic portrayal of the man responsible for creating the Atom Bomb. Murphy’s fierce performance is astonishing for its purposeful sense of moral clarity.

Cillian Murphy remains on a very short list of actors capable of handling such a monumental task.

Here is great character work on display under Murphy’s spotless command. Bradley Cooper stand down. Heads have been cut.

The overall quality of the film is good. Still the movie is not without its problems of editing, variety of tempo, narrative format, and overuse of black and white sequences.  

A much smaller budget could have helped.

Like "Killers of the Flower Moon," this film pins its ending on a courtroom drama that sinks.

What promises to be Christopher Nolan's first cinematic masterpiece, evaporates before our eyes.

The film could stand to lose at least 30 minutes of its overlong runtime, and then it might be three stars, but there isn't a masterpiece here to be carved from its original stone.

Rated R. 180 mins.