EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

          Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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Insufferable.

This overwrought, oh-so-gently racist, movie is a dog of stupidity.

You can sift through the relevance of Hollywood handing this filmic garbage seven Oscars.

Pawns.

Vomiting all of the time now.

The filmmakers attempt in vain to obfuscate their pointed barbs at America's sanctions against China, as spun through a subplot involving the IRS audit of an immigrant family's coin laundry business.

Clever, not.

A softball lesbian subplot involving Joy (Stephanie Hsu), the troubled twentysomething daughter of the film's matriarch Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh), functions to give the movie a phony hook upon which to hang its muddled narrative.

Universe-jumping breaks the movie into dozens of narrative splinters that add up to, well, dozens of meaningless splinters.

"Everything Everywhere All At Once" is a steaming example of visual, sonic, and thematic noise.

Propaganda for propaganda's sake.

Rated R. 129 mins.

ZERO STARS

TO CATCH A THIEF — CLASSIC FILM PICK

     Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

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This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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Alfred Hitchcock goes on a full LGBTQ romp in this elegant romantic suspense classic.

Cary Grant is at his most swishy as John "The Cat" Robie, an ex-pat French Resistance fighter turned cat burglar. 

Check out Robie serving Quiche Lorraine to John Williams's  insurance agent high above the French Riviera at Robie's villa.

Gay code baby.

There's a reason Robie has stayed single all these years.

The lacking sexual chemistry between Grant and Kelly is appropriate for their opportunist characters.

It also serves to make the point that we are watching movie stars acting as if they are falling in love.

We can lean into Hitchcock's artistic flair for artificiality.

The fact that Grace Kelly's Frances character makes the first move when she kisses Robie at her hotel door, speaks volumes.

Robie may or may not have retired from stealing jewelry. Either way, a lot of fancy loot is going missing from Cannes Hotel rooms.

Hitchcock's filmic love letter to the Riviera features spectacular views of Cannes.

Check out the ever-impressive Carlton Hotel on the croisette, or the legendary Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

Lovely, but nothing can compare to Grace Kelly in her role as Frances Stevens, a husband-hunting nouveau riche object of desire.

Hitchcock gives Douglas Sirk a run for his money.

If you like costumes, this is your picture.

Glamor, light, and color explode from every frame of this delightful movie.

"To Catch A Thief" may be an atypical film for Hitchcock's sardonic oeuvre due to its lighthearted nature, but "To Catch a Thief" is a movie to sit back and savor whenever the mood strikes.

You'll always get a great cinematic kiss.

Rated PG. 106 mins.

TÁR

         Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

Welcome!

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon.

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Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

People are a complicated mix of good and bad elements. Talented people more so. 

Cate Blanchett's lesbian orchestra conductor character Lydia Tár is a lot of important things to a lot of people. 

Lydia preys on young women when she isn't busy rehearsing, composing, giving interviews, co-parenting a child with her partner, and all that goes into leading the Berlin Philharmonic.

Where does Lydia find the time for keeping up the subterfuge of pretending to sublimate her ego for art?

Todd Field's first film in 16 years is a (seemingly) rigorous psychological thriller, an intellectual puzzle if you will.

Sadly, it's a broken puzzle.

Lydia Tár gets in Dutch with the mob rule of social media — ironic especially because social media is neither social nor media.

No telling how many lives social media has destroyed.

As for its creator, Field gets in Dutch by cutting too close with the character of Lydia Tár to real-life lesbian symphony conductor Marin Alsop, music director laureate of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra.

For the record, Marin Alsop has voiced her outrage at the film, and its parallels to herself.

Marin Alsop calls Tár "antiwoman."

Hard to argue with Marin Alsop.

You're a fool if you do.

As such, "Tár" comes across as a cheap parlor game.

Why Todd Field chose to craft his film so closely to a specific musical artist is a mystery deeper than any in the film.

If Todd Field had an axe to grind, that axe has come back to hit him in the face.

"Tár" does itself another disservice by neglecting key elements of a suicide subplot that contributes to the challenges of its unreliable protagonist.

Reality has stepped in too much for "Tár" to be considered the masterpiece that it strains to be, much less what it is, a B-movie in big budget trappings.

Cate Blanchett is nonetheless transfixing as ever, even if her narcissist character is a flat cardboard creation.

Rated R. 158 mins.