ANORA — CANNES 2024

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LOVE FOR SALE:

SEAN BAKER'S CINEMA OF SATISFACTION

Sean Baker has stepped firmly into the role of America's most sophisticated, articulate, and socially meaningful filmmaker.

Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, Ken Loach, and Mike Leigh should be falling over themselves, praising Sean Baker for his filmmaking gifts.

Not the least of which is Mr. Baker's seamless ability to slip intimately between American regions (Florida, Texas, New York City) to create thoroughly researched, locality specific, stories that ring like a bell with authenticity and humor.

Sex-work in America is the topic that Sean Baker continues to mine in all of his films.

Mikey Madison takes no prisoners in her fearless performance as Anora. Russian/American "Ani" works at a Brighton Beach strip club where she meets Vanya (Mark Eidelshtein), the over-privileged son to Russian oligarch, Nikolai Zakharov (Aleksey Serebryakov). 

Shit hits the fan when Vanya's filthy rich folks find out that their son and a stripper are a thing.

Darya Ekamasova is hilarious as Galina Zakharov, a woman with way too much money and power. 

The film's remarkable ensemble cast feeds on the material to achieve incredible set-piece action sequences that explode like indoor fireworks.

"Anora," is yet another film (behind "Starlet," "Tangerine," "The Florida Project," and "Red Rocket") that Mr. Baker wrote, cast, directed, and edited, is yet another quantum leap in modernday cinematic storytelling.

This is a movie that gets into your bones.

It is inspiring that Sean Baker is able to write screenplays with such precise novelistic detail about people interacting in overlooked aspects of day-to-day life in America.

Mr. Baker's dialogue is modernday Shakespearean.

Just stunning.

You want Neo-Modern-Realist Cinema, well here it is. Serious adult filmmaking doesn't get any better than this. All NYU film students should be studying Mr. Baker's films.

You can easily tell in its first 15 minutes why "Anora" won the coveted Palme d'Or at Cannes.

"Anora" is a winner, and an instant classic of American Independent Cinema.

Rated R. 140 mins.

THE FALL GUY — EXTENDED CUT

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It is only until now that an all-out action romance comedy, shamelessly celebrating stunt people and their teams of assistants, has been made.

A lot of stunt people and film crew assistants are cheering over this great movie.

Genius British screenwriter Drew Pearce provides a highly polished script, steeped in the lexicon of movie crew lingo .

 "Holster that."

The wild stunts and over-the-top action sequences serve to accentuate bang-on performances by Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, two of the finest actors in the business.

Ryan Gosling is redeemed for his toolishness regarding everything and anything "Barbie."

Just, Ryan, don't do it again.

Emily Blunt is sensational as always.

Director David Leitch ("Bullet Train"), a stunt performer, stunt coordinator, and actor, shows off his virtuosic skills with splash and fury.

If ever there was a big screen IMAX movie to sit with your pals and eat popcorn, "The Fall Guy" is that precious movie.

The extended cut does go on a bit too long for its own good, but sometimes more is more.

I had so much fun watching this masterfully crafted action/romance picture that I could watch it again anytime if even just for its clever dialogue, and to see Emily Blunt do her thing of course.

Fast, sexy, hilarious, and endlessly entertaining, "The Fall Guy" is a true masterpiece regardless of whether it's the short or long version that you see.

Memo to the Academy, if you want greater viewership then start giving out Oscars for Stunt People.

Rated PG-13. 146 mins.

LICORICE PIZZA

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Paul Thomas Anderson shits the bed of his own movie with a couple of truly horrendous scenes of anti-Asian caricature.

Not funny. Not right. Just openly insulting, humiliating, and mean.

Deal-breaker.

The ostensibly comic scenes cut "Licorice Pizza" into as many parts as slices of a classic cheese pie.

The outrageous scenes sit apart from anything else in the movie.

Not good.

Charitable to call Anderson's heavy-handed racist text and subtext insensitive.

Pointed, might be more like it.

For all of the '70s era sex joie de vivre that Anderson celebrates, the writer/director ruins his own inspired creation.

So while its ensemble efforts of actors and filmmakers create something magical, the spell is broken.

"Licorice Pizza" is doomed to the confines of its racist attitudes, that it normalizes by its very existence.

What a waste.

Rated R. 133 mins.

ZERO STARS