It Was Just An Accident (2025): Fate, Karma, Vengeance, Justice … ?

By Len Weiler

Now showing in select theaters nationwide is the much-anticipated new dramatic thriller by Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, It Was Just An Accident. (See below for release details.)  By industry standards, it's a "small" film: a small cast, relatively few locations, lots of closeups, no elaborate action sequences, etc.  But while it takes a minimalist cinematic approach, it is a far cry from simple. After a slow start that sets up the  premise, the narrative quickly gathers momentum, engaging us with the moral quandary it poses and its sheer emotional force. 

It Was Just An Accident is about oppressors and victims, vengeance and forgiveness, and the meaning of “justice”.  It is set in current day Iran, Panahi’s Iran, an authoritarian society where one can be arrested, imprisoned, tortured and even killed for expressing opinions deemed critical of the state. The protagonists of the film have all been targets of such oppression, brutally treated in an Iranian prison. The question the movie poses and confronts is whether it is ever morally justifiable for such a victim to treat their oppressor – in this case a sadistic prison guard -  with the same disregard for human rights - torture or murder, for example – as was applied to them?  In other words, can an eye-for-an-eye vengeance be righteous? 

[Note: If you are sensitive about spoilers you might want to skip this paragraph - which gives a bare outline of the narrative set-up (but not its conclusion) - and go on to the next one.]   Eghbal, driving with his family on a dark, rainy night, has an accident and later brings his car in for repairs. Vahid, working at the back of the repair shop, doesn’t see Eghbal but, from the distinctive sound of his walk, thinks he recognizes him as the sadistic prison guard called “Peg-leg” who tortured him and others some years ago. Vahid has been haunted by that experience and dreaming of vengeance ever since. The next day he finds this man, kidnaps him and takes him out to the desert intending to kill him - going so far as digging a grave for him. Eghbal frantically insists that Vahid is making a mistake; he has never been a prison guard, doesn’t know what Vahid is talking about, etc. He pleads with Vahid to stop.  

Vahid is not convinced, but his certainty is shaken, so he decides to get corroborating opinions from other former ex-prisoners. These include Shiva, a wedding photographer in the middle of a bridal shoot – noticeably not wearing the mandatory hijab; the prospective bride, Golrokh, in her fluffy white wedding gown (along with her confused fiancée who has no dog in this fight); and Hamid, a quick-tempered construction worker. All angrily recall Peg-leg and are eager for retribution. They will become judge and jury determining if Eghbal actually is that guy and deciding his fate. This leads to a wild, spirited debate – dramatically fascinating,  not infrequently amusing (given the motley crew of “jurors”) and so gripping that it kept this viewer anxiously on the edge of his seat.     

How could Panahi even make such a film … and in Iran? Short answer: only with great difficulty and, frankly, enormous courage. As to the realism, this is, at least in part, based on his own experiences.  Panahi himself, recognized as among the world’s greatest filmmakers, was arrested in 2010, convicted of propaganda against the state and sentenced to prison for six years and, even worse, prohibited from writing, producing, or directing films, or even giving interviews, for 20 years. His depiction of Vahid and the other ex-inmates is informed by his own time in prison (when he was first arrested and then again a decade later), spending long periods in solitary confinement, blindfolded, and later among a prison population of (mostly) dissidents, many of whom had been brutally tortured and mistreated. He was eventually released following massive international protests. Only in 2023, were his convictions and sentence officially overturned. 

In the interim, Panahi continued making pictures – obviously at great personal risk - starting with the carefully framed and titled This I Not A Film in 2011 and four more motion pictures between 2013 and 2022, each filmed secretly and smuggled out of the country  - and all banned in Iran. It Was Just An Accident is also banned and, despite the withdrawal of the official prohibitions on Panahi’s career, it too was filmed surreptitiously, because the director refused to submit his screenplay and daily shooting scripts to the government as required – knowing they would not be approved.

- Three of Panahi’s previous films have been reviewed here at Notes On Films. Here are links to each of those, if you are interested: This Is Not A Film (2011), Jafar Panahi’s Taxi (2015), and No Bears(2022).

The critical response to It Was Just An Accident has been tremendously positive. It won the top prize at Cannes, the Palm d’Or [Golden Palm], last May and the Audience Award for best Independent film at the Mill Valley Film Festival last month. The review aggregator Metacritic.com gives the movie a very high average rating from film critics of 92; on RottenTomatoes.com the critical score is 97, while the audience rating averages 82%.  It is France's official submission to the 2026 Academy Awards in the Best International Film category. 

In many respects, this film reminds me of some of the revenge-themed films that were made immediately after the WWII, like The Murderers Are Among Us (1948 - Germany) and Act of Violence (1948 – USA). Like those pictures, It Was Just An Accident is not preachy, ideological or sanctimonious in its presentation. Nor is it ostensibly political. Its characters’ rage against the brutality and inhumanity they suffered at the hands of Peg-leg is personal – based on their own suffering and directed at the man who delivered it. But it is delivered with such force and fervor that the feeling becomes universal – and implicates the regime that imprisoned them.  

All of this works (a) because the acting all-around is simply excellent - I haven’t identified the actors, because I doubt any of the names would be familiar to you; but it’s their commitment that brings us into the story and holds us there. And (b) because Panahi is such a terrific filmmaker. Notwithstanding the constraints he is perforce working under, his writing, his direction, and - for lack of a better word - his 'touch' are just superlative. Also to Panahi's credit: he does not provide easy answers. The result is an intense movie that is more than compelling. It’s provocative – in the best, most literal way: it makes you think, and it stays with you.

1 hour 43 minutes Rated PG-13

Grade: A 

Now playing in select theaters nationwide. In Northern Calif. it's currently at the Kabuki 8-SF, Rialto-Berkeley, Cinemark-Walnut Creek, also in Redwood City, Santa Cruz, Sacramento, Sebastopol, and elsewhere. No release dates have been announced for digital or streaming release at this time.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025): Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark

By Len Weiler

If you are a Bruce Springsteen fan or follow contemporary movies at all, you are undoubtedly aware by now of the new film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, which was released last week with a great deal of publicity – not just movie reviews but press interviews, late night TV appearances, analysis, commentary, and ads. So instead of a long, analytical review here,  I just want to make a few points about the film.

The first of these is that I really enjoyed the movie.   [Personal note: During a significant chunk of my life, I’ve been a huge fan of “The Boss” myself. I’ve seen him perform live several times and in addition to his musical repertoire, I continue to admire his compassion and humanity. To me, he is more than an entertainer – he is a mensch. I should add that Bruce and I are the same age, so some of my appreciation may be generational.] 

The second point is that this is not – I repeat, not – a concert film. At all. [Although it has been not so subtly pitched as such.]  Yes, there are depictions of Springsteen singing Springsteen songs in the picture - all of which are performed by the actor playing him, Jeremy Allen White (see below). Most of these are not in-concert performances. They’re contemplative moments with Springsteen, in his bedroom, composing some of the songs which will eventually be part of his 1982 album, Nebraska. If you are familiar with that album, you will understand that these songs are not muscular rock and roll tunes.  

There IS a little rock’n’roll though. For example, the film opens in early 1981 at the conclusion of Springsteen’s The River tour, as Bruce [Allen] belts out Born to Run to an appreciative audience. Later on, we’ll see him in the studio sometime in 1982 recording a rousing version the newly written Born In The USA (the biggest hit of Springsteen’s career, although it was not released until mid-1984). A couple of times, we even see Bruce at The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, helping out his local buddies on songs like John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom.

But what the movie is primarily about is a major depressive period in Springsteen’s life - the “nowhere” of the film’s title - just as he was becoming a big star and on the cusp of being a superstar.  You could say he was an artist in transition, but it seems this crisis went deeper than that. He was juggling the certainty that he was destined for big things with a powerful, sometimes paralyzing feeling of self-doubt.  The film unsubtly suggests that this related to childhood experiences with his alcoholic father.  That this explanation feels overly simplistic is the film’s narrative weak point.    

The other theme in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is to explore how Springsteen’s personal crisis contributed to his artistic process. Springsteen was still prolifically writing songs, some of which eventually wound up on the Born in the USA album and made him a superstar, but that prospect was far from his mind in 1982. What was on his mind was a set of songs which became his downbeat but (eventually) highly esteemed acoustic album Nebraska, which was released in 1982. These songs were dark, serious, and not in the least upbeat. Nebraska, the album’s title song, is about the killing spree of Charles Starkweather. Atlantic City tells the story of a young man just trying to make a living, moving to the beach town, then compelled to join the mob. Other songs tell how the hopelessness of a factory closure results in a senseless murder, or of a car thief driving along hoping against hope that he won’t get pulled over. 

Not the stuff of pop music. But reflective of a troubled genius’s state of mind. How the Nebraska album got released with its lo-fi sound and down beat content despite strong objections from Springsteen’s record company is a fascinating tale of its own.  

Why should we care? If the production had been a hack job or if the the story been about an unfortunate unknown, I suspect most of us would be far less likely to watch.  But Deliver Me From Nowhere is not that movie; rather, it turns out to be an engaging, intriguing, thought-provoking, well-made saga. Perhaps most of all, it features some excellent performances, notably from Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager/friend, Gaby Hoffmann as his mother, Stephen Graham, as his dad and Odessa Young as his (fictional) girlfriend.  

And, my final point: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere features a remarkable performance – musically and dramatically - by Jeremy Allen White, who transforms himself to look and sound quite like 35-year-old Bruce Springsteen. This accomplishment reminds me of Timothee Chalamet’s take as young Bob Dylan in last year’s A Complete Unknown, even though the two films are very different in almost every other way. (It's neither here nor there, but isn’t it amazing and rather wonderful that both actors not only had to sing like their characters, but to learn how to play guitar, essentially from scratch in order to play their roles!)

Definitely worth seeing.

 2 hours                         Rated PG-13

Grade: B+

In wide release

Nouvelle Vague (2025) and the French New Wave

By Larry Lee

If you are reading this, you probably love the movies.  And if you love the movies, I’ll bet you love watching movies about the movies.  What true film lover can resist, say, director Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain, about the advent of sound in movie business, circa 1929-30.  Or Robert Altman’s The Player, a comedic satire about Hollywood.  Or Chaplin, with Robert Downey, Jr.?  Or The Stunt Man, with Peter O'Toole?  Or last year’s The Fall Guy, with Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt?  Or The Bad and the Beautiful, with Kirk Douglas as a detestable movie producer?  Or Tropic Thunder?  Sullivan’s Travels?  Ed Wood?  The Coen brothers’ Barton Fink?  The list is endless.  (I guess you could add AppleTV’s The Studio, which recently won a whopping 13 Emmys, to the list.)

Here’s another one:  Nouvelle Vague.  Directed by Richard Linklater (Hit Man, Boyhood, the Before Sunrise trilogy, School of Rock - and the just released Blue Moon), this new movie—about the creation and filming of Jean-Luc Godard’s ground-breaking French New Wave movie Breathless (À bout de souffle)—is a filmic confection for film lovers, taking us back to an exciting moment in film history when, by some accounts, everything changed.  No longer was it deemed necessary for a movie to hew to a linear story arc.  Characters could be maddeningly inconsistent or absurd, and the reality and fantasy could sometimes blur.  Dialogue could be improvised.  Editing could be jagged and cuts could even be apparent.  Modern jazz was common.  Shooting on location, with a small budget, with long tracking shots and often with non-professional actors, was no problem.  Exploring existential themes was common.

If you are at all familiar with the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague in French), then you have likely seen Godard’s Breathless, Francois Truffaut’s Jules et Jim or The 400 Blows, Éric Rohmer’s My Night at Maud’s or Claire’s Knee, Jacques Rivette’s Celine and Julie Go Boating, or Agnes Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7.  I remember that these movies would play quite often at the Nuart Theater in West Los Angeles when I was a college student at UCLA in the 1970s.  I saw most of them at that repertory movie house; this was, after all, before one could rent a VHS tape at your local Blockbuster video store, before you could get DVDs by mail from Netflix, and certainly before streaming.  I admit that, at that time, I did not understand these movies at all.  With age may come wisdom, however, and perhaps it is time to revisit them.     

Viewing Nouvelle Vague may well push you to seek out these titles as well (see below).  The movie informatively shows us the milieu in Paris at the time, and what these young film-critics-turned-directors were thinking.  It then recreates Godard’s filming of his seminal movie, Breathless.  The acting is terrific, with Frenchman Aubry Dullin as the young Jean-Paul Belmondo and American Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, as well as Guillaume Marbeck as director Godard.  The movie not only teaches about the New Wave but itself mimics many aspects of New Wave filmmaking:  filmed in black-and-white, the movie contains jump cuts, quick editing, naturalistic acting and location shooting.  I would not be surprised if Linklater eschewed using a tracking dolly or a steady-cam and just pushed his camera operator in a shopping cart, as Godard did.  But along the way, Linklater amuses us with sly humor while making sure we recognize these young titans of the French New Wave:  directors Claude Chabrol, Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivet, Agnes Varda, Èric Rohmer.  So one could say the movie embodies both the principles and the principals of the French New Wave.  This was clearly a labor of love for the director.  That Linklater, who is from Texas, made a movie largely in French, is all the more amazing.

Consider that these were the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar just before the start of the French New Wave:  Anatomy of a Murder, The Diary of Anne Frank, The Nun’s Story, Room at the Top, and the eventual winner, Ben-Hur.  There is nothing wrong with any of those movies, but the French New Wave showed us there could be a different way to tell a story, to show a story, and that there were different kinds of stories to tell.  Think of the justifiably famous long, continuous tracking shot at the beginning of Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.  The non-linear story arc in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction.  The blending of real and magical in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie.  The existential angst in Mike Nichols' The Graduate.  The use of non-professional actors in Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland.  Or the anarchic feel of Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde or Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night.  To that, we say:  Merci beaucoup, Nouvelle Vague.    

1 hour 46 minutes         Rated: R (for some language)

Grade:  A-

Nouvelle Vague will be released in select theaters in the U.S. on 10/31/202; followed by a streaming release on Netflix beginning 11/14/2025.

*  *  *

Streaming availability of other films mentioned above:

• Breathless (1960, dir. Jean-Luc Godard):  stream on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy, rent on Prime.

• Jules and Jim (1962, dir. by Francois Truffaut) stream on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy, rent on Prime.

• The 400 Blows (1959, dir. by Francois Truffaut) stream on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy, rent on Prime.

• My Night at Maud’s (1969, dir. by Èric Rohmer) stream on HBO Max, Criterion.  

• Claire’s Knee (1970, dir. by Èric Rohmer) stream on Criterion, rent on Prime.

• Celine and Julie Go Boating (1974, dir. by Jacques Rivette) stream on Criterion. 

• Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962, dir. by Agnes Varda) stream on HBO Max, Criterion, Kanopy.

Blue Moon (2025): You Saw Me Standing Alone

by Len Weiler

        Blue Moon is a wonderful new film, both melancholy and brightly witty, about the last days of the brilliant lyricist, Lorenz Hart.  It’s a chamber piece, taking place over one evening, almost entirely at the fabled New York theater district hangout Sardi’s. It’s beautifully directed by the great Richard Linklater [Dazed and Confused (1993); Before Sunrise (1995); School Of Rock (2003), Boyhood (2014)] and stars the inimitable Ethan Hawke in a brilliant performance, along with a terrific supporting cast including Bobby Cannavale, Margaret Qualley, Andrew Scott and Patrick Kennedy.

        Unless you are a devotee of musical theater, you may not be familiar with the name Lorenz Hart.  Between 1920 and 1942, he was one half of the great songwriting team of Rodgers and Hart who together provided the music and lyrics for twenty-six Broadway musicals, among them Babes In Arms, The Boys from Syracuse and Pal Joey, and classic songs like Isn’t It Romantic, With a Song in My Heart, My Funny Valentine, Bewitched (Bothered and Bewildered) and the movie’s title song Blue Moon.

Hart, with his manic personality, was a great raconteur and notorious social butterfly. Also a deeply unhappy person and a renowned alcoholic. Richard Rogers was the opposite – a sober, serious-minded family man, who eschewed the “high life.” By 1942, Rodgers felt that Hart had become too unreliable to work with. With a new commission in hand, Rodgers instead teamed up with another prominent lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein, Jr.  Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first project together was a musical called Oklahoma!  [Over the next sixteen years, until Hammerstein’s death, Rodgers and Hammerstein became the greatest songwriting team in musical theater history. In addition to Oklahoma!, their hits include Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and The Sound of Music.]

Blue Moon takes place on March 23, 1943, the triumphant opening night of Oklahoma! on
Broadway. Hart is in the audience.  Before the final applause dies down, he leaves and heads over to his hangout at Sardi’s. He’s not the kind of guy who sits in the corner and sulks; he needs succor, which means he needs to talk. He slides onto a bar stool and orders a whiskey and a glass of water. Eddie, the genial barkeep [Cannavale], raises an eyebrow, knowing that Hart has recently been trying to curtail his drinking. Hart says the booze is not to drink, just to look.  Uh huh.

And then Hart starts to talk (and drink). He’s heartbroken. He knows that his whole life is crumbling or at the very least is under threat.  But he certainly doesn’t come out and say that. He’s the great Larry Hart, for heaven’s sake!  Rather, he starts to dish – on everyone and everything, whatever’s on his fervid mind. It’s a scintillating tour de force outpouring that is by turns funny, revealing, clever, perceptive, self-effacing, heartbreaking, and, under the circumstances, deceptively hopeful. Also, sublimely engaging and entertaining. 

For most of us, anyway. While nearly everyone I spoke to at the Mill Valley Film Festival was enthusiastic in their praise for Blue Moon, I did meet one cinephile who was a bit lukewarm about the film.  "It’s mostly just a guy doing a drunken rant at the bar", she told me. My response was that unlike most drunken bar rants, this one was by a verbally brilliant character, at perhaps the hardest moment in his life, whose “rant” was not only carefully and intelligently scripted, but delivered by a brilliantly talented actor at the top of his game.  

        (I am reminded of an earlier Linklater film, one of my favorites, Before Midnight (2013), the third and final film of what’s now called “The Before Trilogy”.  The third act of that picture consists of a big domestic argument between the two protagonists, Jesse and Celine. One could say, I suppose, “why would I want to watch a married couple arguing?” What I said in my review, though, was “this is one of the most incredible, and incredibly real, arguments in the history of American romantic drama, and on that level, it’s exhilarating!.” Ditto for Hart’s so called “drunken rant”.]

        I can’t say enough good things about Ethan Hawke’s performance as Hart. I’ve never seen him better, and I’ve seen a LOT of his work. Notwithstanding my familiarity with this actor, he is almost unrecognizable in Blue Moon.  He’s made to look a full head shorter than his actual height (Hart was under five feet tall). He sports a horrendous combover.  Although Hawke has had plenty of ‘talky’ roles before, his voice is higher pitched here, and the words come very fast, manically fast, so he doesn't even sound like Hawke. This is not off-putting; it is mesmerizing. This is Ethan Hawke as you’ve never seen (or heard) him before.

For most of the movie, Hart has an audience of three: a quiet man sitting alone near the bar, who turns out to be the erudite editor, essayist, author  E.B. White [Kennedy]; a G.I. on leave from the war, noodling on a nearby piano [Jonah Lees]; and Eddie, the bartender. Eventually, Rodgers [Scott] and the Oklahoma! crew wander in for their after-party and celebration. Hart approaches Rodgers to congratulate him and to discuss their future;  but Rodgers, while trying to be as diplomatic as possible, has other things on his mind. And then there is Elizabeth [Qualley] a Yale undergrad aiming for a career in set design, whom Hart has mentored in the past and has fallen in love with. It's a fantasy that has sustained him in his hour of need. In fact, he's just been rhapsodizing about her to his bar buddies. The two have a poignant, revealing tete-a-tete in the cloakroom - a fabulous scene.

It’s been said that Blue Moon could have been a stage play. True. But luckily for us it’s a movie and thus available for all of us to enjoy. From the finely wrought screenplay to Linklater’s adept direction, to Hawke’s all-in, committed performance, to the pitch perfect supporting cast, and the tragic, fascinating story about Lorenz Hart, this movie is one of the best of the year. A real gem.  

Blue moon, you saw me

standing alone Without a

dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

110 minutes Rated R

Grade: A

Limited theatrical release begins 10/17/25; General release, including at Bay Area theaters, begins 10/24/25.  

Superman (2025): Truth, Justice and .. uh .. Kindness

by Len Weiler

The new reboot of the Superman franchise – called, simply enough, Superman – is a commercial success, with box office receipts pushing past $600 million, and likely at least as much in associated merch – t-shirts, capes, lunchboxes, backpacks, and the like. And it has just become available for home viewing, albeit at premium prices for the moment (see below). More importantly for moviegoers, it’s a pretty doggone good picture in the context of superhero films:  fun to watch, action packed, with high technical production values, excellent cinematography, and – increasingly unusual for the genre - an uplifting emphasis on positive values and the common good. Truth, Justice and the American Way indeed! More on this in a bit.  

The success of this Superman must be credited to James Gunn, the new co-director of DC Films, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers and a would-be competitor to Disney’s Marvel group.  Rather than the traditional “suit”, Gunn is a creator - he wrote and directed the picture, the first major production for DC since he took over.  Gunn has always had an affinity for comic book-style heroes, starting out largely as a scriptwriter, before crashing through to write and direct the mega-hits Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and its successful 2017 sequel. 

Superman, the character, dates all the way back to 1938 scooping his DC stable-mate Batman (who first appeared in 1939), as well as Captain Marvel (1940), Captain America (1941), Wonder Woman (1941), The Hulk and Spiderman (both 1962), among many others. His alter ego Clark Kent is along for the ride in the reboot (although not featured all that much in this iteration) along with most of his well-known supporting characters including (briefly, but importantly) his Kryptonic bio-parents Jor-el and Lara (Bradley Cooper and Angela Sarafyan), his adoptive parents Ma and Pa Kent (Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince), Clark’s editor Perry White (Wendell Pierce) and his colleague Jimmy Olsen (Skyler Gisondo). Even Superman’s dog, Krypto, is included!

Most of the above roles are minor players in the narrative, but Kent’s colleague and Superman’s romantic interest, Lois Lane, has a somewhat bigger part. Thankfully, she is played by the always excellent Rachel Brosnahan – who is, in my book, the best Lois since Margot Kidder paired up with Christopher Reeve in the quartet of movies beginning with Superman (1978) through Superman IV (1987). 

As to Superman himself, he is played by a relative-unknown:  32-year-old David Corenswet in his first big starring role.  Some say he looks a lot like Henry Cavill, the most recent actor to play Superman - in four films from Man of Steel (2013) to Zach Snyder’s Justice League (2021).  Maybe. He also looks, at times, a bit like the preeminent inhabitor of the role Christopher Reeve, while being much more expressive than Reeve. Corenswet is 6’ 4” tall, and (beefed up for the role) 240 pounds. He looks pretty good in cape and costume, and does a fine job as Superman. 

The villain of the piece is, as you may have already guessed,  Superman’s arch enemy, Lex Luthor. Luthor has been played by many notables in the past, including Gene Hackman, Kevin Spacey and Jesse Eisenberg. But Nicolas Hoult’s Luthor in this new Superman - resembling Spacey’s shaved-head version  but cooler and colder - might just be the best of the lot. As usual he has megalomaniacal plans to rule the world, in this case aided by very advanced tech, CGI-created monsters, and an evil but highly lucrative global conglomerate called LuthorCorp, based – like Superman himself – in the usually stateless metropolis – supposedly in Delaware this time around - called Metropolis.

Lex and LuthorCorp seem to have the upper hand over our hero as the film opens. Superman has singlehandedly just halted what he saw as a senseless war in Eastern Europe in order to save thousands of innocent lives.  But LuthorCorp masterminds a vast outrage campaign reframing this unilateral achievement as an unjustified, blatantly dangerous and illegal act of interference in a foreign conflict – done without notice to, unsanctioned by, and contrary to the foreign policy of the US government. Luthor further suggests that Superman, in fact, is pursuing his own evil agenda: He is not one of us - not even human - but an alien  who wants to subjugate humanity for his own ends, a despot in disguise who must be stopped.  Yikes! America’s hero has quickly become an untrustworthy pariah. 

That‘s the starting point. A nearly friendless Superman now must battle back somehow against what is set up to be near impossible odds - while also saving the world from the actual bad guys. Not only that, but he gets beaten in a fight – for the first time ever(?) - by an adversary with confounding super powers equal to his own. All kinds of challenges and adventures ensue, some in quite original, sci-fi surroundings on and off our planet. But the plot, while easy to follow, is too complicated to explain.

This being 2025, the charge of Superman being an alien - made by a power-obsessed bad guy - has been received as evidence of a woke agenda to the movie, as if the mention of a good guy being from another country – or in this case from another planet - is an automatic insult to right wing ideologies! At some point in the movie there are some brief scenes in a refugee camp – undoubtedly a political reference, says the right-wing blogosphere, to the terrible camps and prisons to which ICE detainees are being sent.  My goodness but the MAGA media is awfully touchy!  I’d say, if you automatically see a mere reference to someone being an immigrant as a political statement and/or depictions of (fictional) horrid prisons or refugee camps as criticism of your team’s actions and policies – maybe those policies actually deserve criticism.

All this carping by right-wing influencers, though, is a tempest in a teapot. As Gunn himself has said, “I think this is a movie about kindness, and that‘s something everyone can relate to.”  Especially when compared to the cynical (or just shallow) superhero fare we’ve been fed in recent years, a movie about a super-powered hero with heart, whose goal in life is to fight crime and save lives, seems to me to be a good thing. 

2 hours 9 minutes PG-13 (for violence, action and language)

Grade:  B+

Superman is still playing in theaters and also has just become available for home viewing on several platforms [including Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube] - at premium prices for now:  to rent from $19.99 - $24.99 or to purchase for $29.99. Eventually, it will be available to stream on HBO Max - likely sometime in October, although a date has not been announced. 

The Naked Gun (2025): Goofy, Silly, Hilarious

by Len Weiler

In case you were wondering whatever happened to the zany, madcap laugh-a-minute, comedies made popular in the 1980s by movies like Airplane! (1980), you need wonder no more. They are back – or perhaps I should say one of them is back.  I am referring, of course, to the reboot of the original police spoof The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! which appeared in 1988 and spawned two sequels: The Naked Gun 2 ½: The Smell of Fear (1991) and Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult (1994). All of these grew out of a short-lived TV series simply called Police Squad! (beloved in retrospect), which ran for just 6 episodes back in 1982. 

The new model is simply called The Naked Gun (no exclamation point). It stars – remarkably – Liam Neeson as clueless, deadpan Detective Frank Drebin, Jr.  And to answer the most important question - yes, it is funny, very funny. Is it as funny as the original 1988 movie? We’ll come back to that. First, a short history.

Airplane!, written and directed by Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and David Zucker (soon known simply as ZAZ) was a spoof of the many disaster movies popular in the 1970’s, specifically Airport (1970) [bomber on a plane, blizzard at the airport]  and its three sequels (which shall go unnamed here), as well as popular disaster dramas like The Poseidon Adventure (1972) [passengers and crew trapped in overturned luxury liner] and The Towering Inferno (1974) [fire in the world’s newest, tallest skyscraper]. Airplane! was an absolute hoot – relying on verbal and visual puns, sight gags, slapstick, caricature, and straight-faced cluelessness – all delivered in a slick, rapid-fire style not seen since the best Marx Brothers films of the 1930s . 

The 1988 Naked Gun, another ZAZ venture, applied a similar approach to the police action genre, with similar success. Like Airplane!, it is considered one of funniest films of all time – for example, #13 in TimeOut’s 2025 list of the 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time (with Airplane! sitting at #2). TimeOut’s Tom Huddleston writes, “Second only to Airplane! in the gag-for-gag hit-rate stakes, The Naked Gun never met a dumb pun, slapstick pratfall or deadpan one-liner it didn’t like.” 

Although it feels like it, this new The Naked Gun is not a ZAZ production. Rather it’s written by Dan Gregor and Doug Mand, and directed Akiva Schaffer - all of whom have backgrounds mostly in TV comedies, although they worked together on the feature-length animation reboot Chip N Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022). The Naked Gun, however, flies at a whole different altitude.  

Liam Neeson, an actor known for dramatic roles - from his Oscar nominated lead performance in Schindler’s List (1993), to Michael Collins (1997), Kinsey (2004), Taken (2008), and Widows (2018) - is not known for comedy and certainly not for silly.  The same was true however for Leslie Nielson, who, before his supporting role in Airplane! and his leading role as detective Frank Drebin in the original Naked Gun, worked exclusively in dramatic roles, from westerns to war stories, even for a time as the romantic lead in love stories. Neeson, playing against type as Frank Drebin, Jr. in The Naked Gun, turns out to be great at it. He does not smile. He delivers even the most nonsensical lines completely deadpan with a gruff growl of a tough-guy voice. He does not mug (unlike Nielson’s version of the character). Drebin, Jr. is totally committed to police work - albeit with a total disregard for any restrictive rules. Which gets him into trouble. Which he also disregards. Yet, amid the comic chaos, over the course of this 85-minute mini-masterpiece, Neeson is such a good actor that he brings to what could have been a purely cardboard caricature a bit of humanity. A little bit, but still.  

Commenting on the 1988 Gun, Roger Ebert noted that “reviewing The Naked Gun is like reporting on a monologue by Rodney Dangerfield – you can get the words, but not the music.” [The comedian Rodney “I don’t get no respect” Dangerfield” was known for his rapid-fire stream of one-liners, like “I was ugly, very ugly. When I was born the doctor smacked my mother!”]. So, rather than use mere words and to give you some sense of the comic sensibility if not the “music” of the new Naked Gun, here’s a link to the movie’s trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adb299p3B98  

Sure, there are some bad jokes in the mix, but even groaners become funny.  As Ebert also commented, “you laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing”!  

The current film also features a perfectly cast Pamela Anderson [Baywatch (1993-97), The Last Showgirl (2024)]. She’s Beth Davenport, the beautiful blond sister of a man whose death is initially believed to be a suicide. She comes to Detective Drebin insisting it was actually a homicide. Eventually, predictably, the two become romantically intertwined. Drebin being Drebin, it takes a while for him to catch on. Also featured is Paul Walter Hauser [Richard Jewell (2019)] as Ed Hocken, Jr., Drebin’s friend/sidekick and the son of a character originally played by George Kennedy in the 1988 picture. The ultimate villain in this movie is nefarious rich tech guy Richard Cane (well played by Danny Huston), who plans to take over everything via an ingenious (and ridiculous) plot device.

Released on August 1st, The Naked Gun has been a hit with audiences and critics alike (this one included).  Aiden Kelley in Collider writes: “The Naked Gun’s joke-per-minute ratio is truly astounding … for goodness sake, even the credits have jokes!”.  And Johnny Oleksinski in the NY Post raves: “Someway, somehow, it’s the funniest movie to hit theaters in a long time.” I’ll conclude with the Wall Street Journal’s Kyle Smith: “In these days when flat out. comedy features are scarce., it's one of the most welcome tenants at the summer multiplex. A mid-movie snowman gag puts the new one over the top, bestowing on it the honor of being mentionable alongside its predecessors. It sets the lunacy level to ‘inspired’.” 

Is it as funny as the 1988 original? I haven't seen that one in years. Could be. Probably is.  All I can say for sure is it is damn funny. Laugh out loud funny.  

85 minutes Rated PG-13 (!!)

Grade: A

In wide release. (No streaming dates have been announced at this time.)

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley (2025): Almost A Superstar

 By Len Weiler

This is the first of three movie reviews I hope to post this week.  The other two reviews will be of two new movies in current release: Superman a surprisingly good remake about the caped crusader, and The Naked Gun a surprisingly funny remake of the classic, very silly comedy  The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad from 1988. Today's review is of  It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a new documentary film by Amy Berg about the musician Jeff Buckley - opening in select theaters on August 8. 

Buckley, who died in 1997, was admired as a remarkably gifted singer, as well as for his lyrically imaginative, emotionally evocative songwriting. He is, however, best known today for his terrific rendition of the Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah.  Cohen’s original recording of Hallelujah was released in 1984 – without making a ripple. Seven years later in 1991, John Cale recorded his cover of the song, which received some favorable attention. Buckley’s version - only the second cover of the song - was included on his album Grace in 1994; while it did not become a megahit during his lifetime, it is now generally considered the benchmark rendition of Hallelujah and frequently cited as one of the greatest recorded tracks of all time. (There are now well over three hundred cover versions of the song, so your opinion about the absolute best one might differ – but if you listen or re-listen to Buckley’s performance [here’s a link], I doubt it.)  But I digress.

Those who knew Jeff Buckley and many of those who heard him in the mid-90s thought he was going to be a superstar in the pantheon of the greatest singer songwriters of all time. But he only completed the one album, Grace, issued in 1994. He was in the process of. recording a second album at the time of his premature death. He was just thirty years old.

I knew little about Jeff Buckley, other than Hallelujah, before watching It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley. I knew he was the son of another singer-songwriter, Tim Buckley, whom I had seen at a nightclub in 1969 or 1970 and that I liked a lot at the time. Jeff looked a lot like his dad, and his voice was somewhat similar, but finer. He never really knew Tim, and bristled at any suggestion that his music could or should be compared with his father’s. 

It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley reveals Jeff as a gifted, talented young man with a sensitive and troubled soul and an interesting back story. One of the surprises for me was how varied his style was - and how so much of his material is quite different from Hallelujah.  The film motivated me to delve into his album, Grace, which is quite impressive, definitely worth exploring.  Upon its release, the album got mixed reviews, ranging from near ecstatic to outright pans, although most were somewhere between those extremes. Initially, it did not sell at all well, but Buckley and his band toured extensively for nearly two years to promote it, and by the time of Jeff’s death 175,000 copies had been sold. Subsequently, acclaim for the work grew so that by 2011 total worldwide sales passed 2 million.

 

The documentary was definitely a passion project for director Amy Berg, whose previous works include the music documentary Janis: Little Girl Blue ((2015) about Janis Joplin.  Buckley’s story is interesting and tragic. The music in the film is plentiful, often lovely and wonderful, and works both to give us a sense of things and to familiarize us with what Buckley was actually doing. Unfortunately, we rarely get the opportunity to experience the complete performance of a song, only excerpts (a frequent complaint I have with such films). Berg’s storytelling is a bit of a jumble too. Part of the problem seems to be that the filmmaker didn’t have enough archival film or video footage, other than clips of performances, that could advance the story, so to fill in the details she relies a lot on still photographs (Ken Burns style) and newly recorded interviews with a few people who actually knew Jeff well – primarily his mother Mary Guibert, his two long-term romantic partners Rebecca Moore and Joan Wasser, and a band member, Michael Tighe. Other talking heads include admiring musicians and members of his management team. Here and there, Berg inserts animated line drawings to illustrate events these witnesses are describing – a tactic that feels too lighthearted for the material.

The ending of the film is quite touching, because of Buckley’s tragic death, obviously. But also because of the deep affection for Jeff evinced so many years after the event by the three women in his life as they recall their reactions. If Jeff’s last voicemail message to his mom doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, that’s your problem.

  

So, the movie is something of a mixed bag. The man and the story at the center of It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley deserves an A.  Stylistically, the film probably rates a B.  If you are a fan of Jeff Buckley, it is a Must-See movie.  For everyone else, it is – as I’ve said – an interesting film and also, for any one into popular music, a worthwhile one despite its flaws. 

1 hour 46 minutes

Grade: B+

The film opens in select theaters nationwide on August 8, 2025. In the SF Bay Area, that includes in SF: the Roxie Theater, the AMC Metreon 16 and the 4 Star Theater; in Berkeley at the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood.  It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley is produced in part by HBO Films and is expected to begin streaming on HBO/HBO Max approximately in January.

The 2025 Half Oscars ™ … and more good stuff

By Larry Lee

The Summer Solstice has come and gone, and thus each passing day is getting imperceptibly shorter. So it’s time for my annual Half Oscars™ awards, honoring the best movies from the first half of the year. 

As in previous years, I am limiting myself to movies I saw in theaters, with some exceptions as noted. Also, as in past Half Oscars™ essays, movies from 2024 that were submitted for International Feature Film Oscar consideration yet only released in the U.S. (in theaters or for streaming) in 2025 are, rather randomly, rendered ineligible for this list because I considered them in my annual “Best of…” list for 2024. (That is, no double counting.) This category includes some really great movies, such as I’m Still Here (from Brazil, on Netflix), and The Seed of the Sacred Fig (an Iranian film in Farsi, but from Germany) (stream on Hulu or rent on Prime). I strongly recommend both.

Mass Market pictures: The first six months of 2025 left me feeling that this has been a down year for movies. Looking at the top ten grossing movies in the world (without discussing the Chinese juggernaut Ne Zha 2, which - despite an astounding worldwide gross of $1.8 billion - grossed a paltry $20 million in the USA), eight of the remaining nine movies are based on preexisting intellectual property, led by A Minecraft Movie based on the Minecraft video game. (I didn’t see that film, as I follow a general rule of avoiding movies based on video games.) Despite predictions of gloom and doom, the Marvel Cinematic Universe [MCU] continues apace with Captain America: Brave New World ($415 million) and Thunderbolts* ($380 million). Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt chugs along in Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning ($564 million). 

But the one movie among the top ten grossers that is based on original creative material, Ryan Coogler’s Black Southern Gothic/vampire mashup Sinners ($362 million), gives one hope that we can still see new and original stories. If you have a modest tolerance for gore and violence, you may find this movie worth your time; it barely missed my Half Oscars™ list. (In theaters) (137 min.)

Smaller films:  Looking past these mass-marketed crowd pleasers, many interesting movies, both small indie ones and more heralded ones, were released in the first half of the year that, despite just missing out on my Half Oscars™ list, are well worth seeing. These include:

•Mickey 17 (stream on Max, rent on Prime) (137 min.) Director Bong Joon-Ho’s (Parasite) latest movie is a goofy sci-fi epic with sly political overtones, starring Robert Pattinson as an “expendable,” a low level employee who is routinely killed while engaging in risky corporate jobs but is then simply recreated by a cloning procedure and sent out on another job. I also enjoyed the always-good Mark Ruffalo as the trying-too-hard Trump wannabe leader.

•On Swift Horses ($20 Prime rental) (119 min.) This is an old-fashioned, sweeping romantic drama about a woman finding her place in the world, starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (Twisters) and Jacob Elordi (Saltburn).

•Bob Trevino Likes It ($6 rental on Prime) (101 min.) This movie presents a touching story of a young woman (Barbie Ferreira) clinging to life’s bottom rung. She has no familial or financial support, no one to provide emotional support. But by coincidence, she finds a lifeline in a stranger, played by John Leguizamo, doing perhaps the best work of his professional career.

•Black Bag (stream on Peacock, $6 rental on Prime) (93 min.) Veteran director Steven Soderbergh (Logan Lucky, Magic Mike, Contagion, Ocean’s Eleven, Traffic, Erin Brockovich) provides us with an intricate and expertly crafted spy thriller, starring A-listers Michael Fassbender (Steve Jobs, 12 Years a Slave, several X-men movies) and Cate Blanchett (Tár, Nightmare Alley, Carol, Blue Jasmine). This one is for grown-ups and rewards close observation, for like any good director, he shows us what is happening instead of telling us what is happening.

•The Alto Knights (stream on Max, $6 rental on Prime) (123 min.) A new movie from another veteran director, this time Barry Levinson (Diner, The Natural, Good Morning, Vietnam, Bugsy, Wag the Dog). He has crafted a sweeping gangster epic written by Nicholas Pileggi, who wrote Casino and Goodfellas, both well-respected gangster movies directed by Martin Scorsese. This movie, which tells a true(ish) story, stars Robert DeNiro in dual roles (why?), playing both real-life bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. Despite this De Niro double-play oddity, the movie was better, and more entertaining, than the critical and public reception would have you believe. But perhaps the public is just a bit tired of these types of movies, and wants something fresher.

•Death of a Unicorn   ($5 rental on Prime) (107 min.) This a very entertaining light horror/thriller satire with anti-corporate, anti-medical establishment, and anti-capitalist through-lines, with Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Richard E. Grant, and (of course) killer unicorns.
•Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (in theaters) (98 min.) This French movie edges My Dead Friend Zoe and Death of a Unicorn for the Best Title of 2025. Often described as a rom-com, I found both the romance and the comedy somewhat muted; this is no Bridesmaids or Clueless. Perhaps this is because the movie is French, but in any event, the set-up is nice and the performances and writing are sharp.

•The Materialists (in theaters) (116 min.) [reviewed last week in Notes On Films] This is director Celine Song’s (Past Lives) newest movie . Starring Dakota Johnson, Pablo Pascal, and Chris Evans, the movie is about a matchmaker who, for better or worse, views potential success in relationships as merely questions of income, height, age, and other superficial traits. I was slightly offended by the premise (and perhaps the ending) but admit I was thinking about this movie long after the credits rolled and the house lights came up. Although the actors are easy on the eyes, don’t fall for the description of the movie as a “rom-com”; there is some romance certainly, but very little comedy.

•Bad Shabbos (in theaters) (a brisk 84 minutes) By contrast, this one is all comedy. The first meeting of the future in-laws of an interfaith couple is, of course, ripe for laughs, but this one goes all out, full throttle, and never looks back. With veterans David Paymer and Kyra Sedgwick, a bunch of young newcomers and, critically, Method Man of the Wu-Tang Clan as the helpful doorman. Very funny.

           *  *  * 

The Half Oscars™ List:  The above movies are all worth your time, but for me, the top ten movies from the first half of the calendar year of 2025 are:

10. The Friend (rent on Prime for $6) (119 min.) Naomi Watts (Mulholland Drive, The Impossible, Eastern Promises, The Painted Veil) stars as Iris, a New York writer who, with little warning, must take custody of a Great Dane named Apollo when her famous and charismatic mentor, played by Bill Murray, suddenly passes away. I expected a predictable comedy of manners—giant dog in small, rent-controlled New York apartment, causing havoc—and there admittedly a bit of that. But this is no Turner & Hooch (1989) or Beethoven (1992). It is more nuanced than those and chooses the more difficult yet more rewarding path of having Iris re-examine and re-assess her life and her memories. Apollo then helps her process her grief over the passing of an important but admittedly flawed person in her life.

9. The Assessment (rent on Prime for $4) (114 min.) In the near future, the world has been environmentally wrecked and the availability of critical resources greatly diminished. In this world, having a child is strictly controlled by the government. Couples—such as the one played by Elizabeth Olsen (WandaVision, Wind River) and Himesh Patel (Yesterday) — wishing to start a family must undergo an official assessment of their fitness to be parents. Enter a government Assessor, here played by Alicia Vikander (Firebrand, The Danish Girl, Ex Machina). The latter’s tests become more outlandish and intrusive as time goes on, and the last third of the movie threatens to go off the rails, reminding me of last year’s body-horror movie The Substance in tone (but not in ickiness). But this is not a horror movie, at least not physically or traditionally, but a type of psychological thriller. Instead of machete-wielding men or flesh-eating zombies, this movie has big ideas, such as the degree (and appropriateness) of government control of our lives, the personal freedom to procreate, the proper allocation of scarce resources, and the official restriction of vital information. This movie is not for everyone, and I suspect it will be a controversial choice for my top ten, but finding a well-written, well-acted movie that looks different, and tells a story we haven’t seen before, is a rare thing.

8. Companion (stream on Max, rent on Prime for $6) (97 min.) Isaac Asimov first posited his famous Three Laws of Robotics in a 1942 short story: ( 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; (2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; (3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. This was on my mind when I watched Companion which, like The Assessment, takes place in the near future. Unlike The Assessment, which asks us to consider the compromises we must make to live in an environmentally ruined world, Companion is a sly commentary on personal relationships in the future, and how artificial intelligence will affect them. The movie begins with Josh (Jack Quaid) and his girlfriend Iris (Sophie Thatcher) riding in their driverless car, off to a remote mansion in the woods for a fun weekend with friends. But something isn’t quite right with the group of friends. Or Iris. Again, this one may not be for everyone, as it contains moderate but escalating amounts of both violence and snark. And the absence of basic empathy among the young people that populate this movie, while amusing, is also dispiriting. If Call the Midwife or Downton Abbey is your favorite TV series, this one is probably not for you. Yet despite the relatively high body count, Companion is an entertaining thriller full of ideas about our possible future.

7. Freaky Tales ($6 rental on Prime) (107 min.) This movie follows the trail blazed by 2022’s breakout hit Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. Freaky Tales presents four separate, jagged, yet coherent and interlocking stories, all set in the San Francisco East Bay in the 1990s, and should appeal to those who lived there at that time. Real East Bay locations (like Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater) are used and real-life East Bay personalities appear, enhancing the verisimilitude. We visit a Gilman St. punk club in West Berkeley, the nascent rap battle scene in Oakland, a video store renting VHS tapes (remember those?), and baller Sleepy Floyd of the Golden State Warriors basketball team. But those are merely the launching pads - the stories spin wildly, deliciously out from there. Super inventive but seemingly uber-local, you will nevertheless recognize some A-list movie stars and real-life East Bay celebrities. Likely aimed at a Millennial audience, any true film fan nevertheless should get a kick out of this movie.

6. Quisling: The Final Days ($5 rental on Prime) (146 gripping minutes) [I saw this movie on the big screen at a film festival, but eschewing a theatrical release, it has been released on streaming only.] When the world was plunged into war in the 1940s, the leaders of the axis powers were the obvious enemies: Hitler, Mussolini, Hirohito. But a special place in hell was reserved for the collaborators, those leaders who welcomed the occupying Nazi forces into their country and cooperated with them. In France, it was Marshall Henri Pétain. And in Norway, it was Vidkun Quisling. Similar to how “Benedict Arnold” and “Judas” are now descriptive terms to describe a traitor, the term “Quisling” now refers generally to a traitor or collaborator. (Indeed, Wikipedia lists several instances where American reporters and pundits have referred to Donald Trump and/or his followers as “Quislings.”) This intense, fact-based movie, based on newly discovered notes taken by a priest who ministered to prisoner Quisling in the days before his execution, allows us to see the man in all his complications, contradictions, and self-delusions. The performances are extraordinary but special kudos to Norwegian actor Gard B. Eidsvold who portrays Quisling; the actor’s father in real life was tortured by Quisling’s administration. A top-notch historical drama. (In Norwegian.)

5. My Dead Friend Zoe ($6 rental on Prime) (103 minutes) This one disappeared from theaters rather quickly, which is a shame, but at least viewers can find it streaming. Young actresses Sonequa Martin-Green (Star Trek: Discovery, The Walking Dead) and Natalie Morales (Language Lessons, Battle of the Sexes), get an assist from grizzled veterans Ed Harris and Morgan Freeman to tell this story of a Gulf War veteran suffering from PTSD. War is hell, as we all know, and combat soldiers’ lives are affected by serving in war zones in ways large and small that civilians can only guess at. This movie tells that story in a unique way, and as it slowly unfolds, we gain greater appreciation of the journey veterans must travel after their service ends and they are demobilized. Both the story and the way it unspools are unusual, and the two young stars are very appealing. You’ve not seen this before.

4. The Penguin Lessons ($6 rental on Prime) (111 min.) It’s not only Great Danes that can help us gain greater self-awareness over our lives; it turns out penguins can too! As in The Friend (#10, above), this one seems, in prospect, likely to be a clichéd story of a cute animal teaching a stupid human a thing or two. But it is much more than that. First, there is the setting: Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1976, during the military junta’s crackdown on the civilian populace. That gives the story an undercurrent of impending, random menace. Second, the protagonist is played by Steve Coogan, who is a master of maintaining an air of wry bemusement despite having been hit by several of life’s pitches. Third, well, the penguin is pretty cute. This emotionally satisfying movie asks what one person can do in the face of massive injustice, and at times echoes 1989’s Dead Poets Society. But here’s the kicker: the movie is based on a true story! Highly recommended.

3. The Life of Chuck (in theaters) (111 min.) Based on a Stephen King novella, this unusual movie unfolds in three parts but in reverse, so viewers are at first a tad confused as to what is going on. Something magical? Metaphorical? Science fiction? Speculative fiction? Coming of age? Is this what the apocalypse will look like? But stay with it, all will be revealed. And in the end, you will ponder a life well-lived, however short, and perhaps consider all the people who have populated your life through the years. The all-star cast includes Tom Hiddleston, Karen Gillan, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Carl Lumbly - all finding good work after their various stints in the MCU - and Jacob Tremblay, the child actor in 2015’s Room. You may also recognize the lovely Mia Sara playing the grandmother (!) and wonder where all the time has gone since we saw her in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Ditto the crusty grandfather, played by none other than Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). This is an emotionally satisfying movie.

2. The Ballad of Wallis Island (stream on Peacock, $10 rental on Prime) (99 mins.) This quirky dramedy is the kind of thing the British do so well. There is built-in pathos in the setup, for how would you feel if the high points of your personal love life and creative life converged in your 20s and then suddenly just went away? Would you spend your remaining days chasing the same high? What if, after years of subsequent disappointment, you had a chance to recapture that high point, if just for a moment? I was really pulling for Herb McGwyer, played by Tom Basden (After Life), a singer songwriter who enjoyed widespread acclaim years ago as part of a performing duo with Nell Mortimer, played by Carey Mulligan (Maestro, Saltburn, Promising Young Woman, An Education). But while she has moved on with her life, Herb is stuck. A goofy millionaire might give them a second chance, but is that even possible? Tender and melancholic, with plenty of odd comedic moments to propel this unusual story along.

1.  There’s Still Tomorrow ($4 rental on Prime) (118 min.) This stylish Italian movie, filmed in black-and-white, tells the story of a poor family in the immediate post-war period in Italy, a time when American soldiers are still posted in the city. Paola Cortellisi impressively co-wrote, directed, and stars as Delia, the nearly illiterate, put-upon wife and mother holding the family together despite a physically abusive husband, a verbally abusive invalided father-in-law, and three unappreciative children. Is this the life Delia wanted? Is it too late to change? Although her present situation looks bleak, as the movie’s title says, there’s still tomorrow. With some movies, you know what’s going to happen; for example, you know Norway will execute Quisling for his crimes, and that Tom Cruise/Ethan Hunt will do the impossible, save the world, and still escape. This is not one of those movies. But I doubt you will be disappointed. I was transported both times I saw this movie, and I think you will be too.

 *  *  *

Wait – There’s more:  In addition to the above movies, I would like to highlight three terrific documentaries I’ve seen recently:

•Zurawski v. Texas (stream on Jolt.Film for $5 until 9/2/2025) (98 min.) Women are dying of correctible medical conditions due to strict anti-abortion laws in Texas. This movie tells the story of a group of women who are fighting to change the law, with an intrepid attorney by their side. They are not asking for much. They are not asking for abortion on demand or abortion for the purpose of casual contraception or gender selection. These are women with rare medical conditions whose lives could be ended if they bring the fetus to term or have proof that their fetus is already brain-dead in the womb, and whose future fertility would be compromised without an abortion. This documentary puts human faces to the abortion debate.

•Georgia O’Keeffe: The Brightness of Light (in theaters) (118 min.) You may think you know about this quintessentially American artist, but you will still learn a thing or two from this movie. You may come away thinking that O’Keeffe’s position in 20th century American art is preeminent, and wonder (as I did) if the elevation of Andy Warhol, Robert Rauchenberg, Jackson Pollock, Vasily Kandinsky and Mark Rothko into the pantheon of American art had something to do with the fact that they were all men.

•Skin of Glass (stream on the PBS website or MUBI) (90 min.) Ostensibly a documentary about an architecturally groundbreaking skyscraper design in Sao Paulo, Brazil, the movie becomes so much more and more textured as it unfolds: a daughter’s search for her father’s legacy, the recent modern history of Brazil, how architectural design became Brazil’s contribution to modernism in the world, and how the current housing shortage in Brazil has overtaken past glories. (Consider: San Francisco has 8,400 unhoused people. Sao Paulo has 140,000!) This movie would make a nice double feature with Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, last year’s Oscar winner for Best International Feature Film from Brazil.