Thoughts on Things Seen

  I've been very vocal about my opinion on movie run times:  I think most are simply too long, and would be sharply improved if trimmed by 15-20 minutes.  It's gotten to the point where finding anything under two hours feels like a miracle, and run times of three hours or more are way too common ( The Brutalist , Killers of the Flower Moon , and Oppenheimer I'm looking at you). While there are plenty of people who think every minute of those award-winning movies is gold, I think they'd all be better if they were trimmed by about 25%. This is why I was thrilled to see that our local movie theater was playing Presence . Steven Soderbergh's latest has a wonderfully tight run time of 85 minutes. And at a time when Hollywood budgets seem to be experiencing yet another growth spurt, it was reportedly made for under $2 million and shot over just 11 days. And here's the most important thing: I liked it a lot. Lucy Liu is the most recognizable name as Rebekah, the mot...

  Written by  Gabriel Sherman and directed by Ali Abbasi , The Apprentice is, in many ways, a (very) tough watch for someone like me who hates the orange turd with a passion. I opted to check it out because (a) in large part, it's about how the horrific lawyer Roy Cohn (an excellent Jeremy Strong , best known for his work as Kendall Roy in Succession ) molded Trump in his own image and (b) I think Sebastian Stan, who plays the turd, is outstanding. As a side note, if you haven't seen Stan in the exceptionally creepy mini-series Fresh , it's definitely worth checking out. And if you're not familiar with Cohn's anti-democratic work as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950's, you can read about it HERE . I found The Apprentice fascinating, even though it didn't tell me much I didn't already know, and I'm not at all surprised that they had trouble finding American distribution (I saw a screener as a member of Film Independent). The...

  We saw The Killer's Game yesterday, and I truly enjoyed it. Yes, it's (very) violent. Yes, it's loud. But: 1. Wrestler turned actor Dave Bautista gets better and better. He's made it clear in interviews, including here in GQ , that he wants to be a really good actor. He's worked at it and it shows. He can be funny and touching as well as tough. 2. Bautista looks great. Seriously. This article in Variety discusses his weight loss from 315 pounds for Knock at the Cabin to his current 240 pounds. He's still a BIG guy (6'4" tall) but doesn't dominate his co-stars quite as much. 3. Love interest Maize, a ballet dancer who Bautista's Joe Flood meets during a hit, is played by Algeria-born Sofia Boutella . She's a dancer by training and is delightful in the role. I LOVE that the movie avoids the damsel-in-distress set up, with Maize as tough as Joe. The red dress that she wears in her opening performance put me in mind of the classic The Red S...

  I watched Kevin Costner 's Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 this week. It was OK: no more or less than that. I'll certainly watch Chapter 2 but can't promise that I'll make it through all 4 parts. My initial concern wast that it would feel drawn-out, with the kind of lugubrious pacing that makes me want to tear my hair out.  But it was the opposite: it races from one set of interesting events and characters to another, never letting you digest what just happened before we're off to something (and somewhere) else.  It feels like it should have either been (1) a ten episode mini-series or (2) edited WAY down. The characters and stories are interesting enough, the acting is solid (I'm a big fan of Sienna Miller and of course the scenery is spectacular, although it all looks a bit alike after awhile. But here's my real "what the heck was that?" which isn't a spoiler. As the Chapter 1 story wraps up, we leap into an un-introduced montage of s...

  I am, admittedly, behind schedule in watching the final season of Billions , the Showtime series that wrapped up its decades-long battle between a NY state attorney general (played by Paul Giamatti ) and his various opponents at a hedge fund earlier this year. Season 7 opens with billionaire Michael Prince ( Corey Stoll ) telling his right hand woman, psychiatrist & performance coach Wendy Rhoades ( Maggie Siff ), that he's running for President.  She concludes that not only would Prince make a frighteningly awful president, he's a threat to American democracy (sound like anyone you know?). And she has to keep this from happening. The entire episode sets out the goals of this final season. But THE scene - one of the best written, directed, and edited scenes I've watched in a long time - starts at the 18:40 mark.  Wendy emerges from her black chauffeur-driven SUV in front of Wo Hop, a hole in the wall Chinatown mainstay familiar to millions of New Yorkers (it's at ...