Comedy

In Jay Kelly and 100 Nights of Hero, Storytelling Is the Story

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Maika Monroe in 100 Nights of Hero; George Clooney in Jay Kelly

Movies aren’t folktales. They don’t change over time, like myths relayed around a campfire. But they are nevertheless ideal vehicles for telling stories, and their unique form allows them to explore the process of how we perpetuate fiction. Last weekend featured the arrival of two films that are very different in structure and style, but which both wrestle with the metatextual relationship between artist and audience. It’s a subject that sounds academic but proves, at least in these two instances, to be awfully entertaining.

Jay Kelly is named for its main character, a man who is less a famous actor than a megawatt celebrity. Entering his 60s, he’s been captivating ticket-buyers for decades, working in a variety of genres—action flicks, mature dramas, romantic comedies—yet always brandishing his singular screen presence. He is handsome, eloquent, charming. I should probably mention that he’s played by George Clooney. Read More

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Thanksgiving Roundup: Zootopia 2, Frankenstein, Train Dreams, Rental Family, Sentimental Value

Jeremy BeckReviews
The fox in Zootopia 2; Oscar Isaac in Frankenstein; Joel Edgerton in Train Dreams; Brendan Fraser in Rental Family; Renate Reinsve in Sentimental Value

In a perfect world, I’d use this website to write long-form reviews of every new movie I watched. Sadly, I lack both the time and the talent to do so. Yet my combination of OCD and narcissism compels me to always register my opinions in some fashion—typically via Letterboxd, where I can scribble down two-paragraph capsules that convey my overarching thoughts without adhering to the formal style and detail of a proper review. (For example, I never found the time to review Hamnet, but my spoiler-heavy Letterboxd blurb digs into that film’s majestic ending.) I try not to shill for corporations, but whether you’re the dorkiest of cinephiles or just a casual viewer, it’s a free and useful app, and—what was I saying about narcissism again?—if you’re ever searching for my thoughts on a movie that I didn’t review here, you can likely find them there.

This week, though, rather than choosing a single title to highlight, we’re going rapid-fire through some recent releases—a blend of audience-pleasing blockbusters, independent fare, and streamers that Netflix refused to let you see in a theater. Let’s get to it. Read More

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Bugonia review: Alien vs. Redditor

Jeremy BeckReviews
Emma Stone in Bugonia

Have you noticed that the world is falling apart? That corporations wield enormous power? That the mega-rich are infiltrating the government to advance their own agenda at the expense of the working poor? Teddy has noticed. More than that, he’s determined that our ongoing societal collapse stems from a particular form of unchecked immigration—one that has nothing to do with national borders. That’s right, according to Teddy there’s a more insidious invading force at work: aliens.

Bugonia is the latest whatsit from Yorgos Lanthimos, the fiendishly inventive filmmaker of such marvels as Poor Things, The Lobster, and The Favourite. It isn’t as great as those movies, lacking their conceptual ambition and their ravishing craftsmanship. But it is nonetheless a potent and arresting work—an intimate, suspenseful thriller that also tackles modern discontent with satirical ingenuity and sobering clarity. Read More

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One Battle After Another: Inherent ICE

Jeremy BeckReviews
Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another

Did Paul Thomas Anderson just make an action movie? Yes and no. Certainly, One Battle After Another is a robust and muscular production, replete with car chases, kidnappings, and explosions. Yet its most exhilarating sequence—the one that best encapsulates its singular combination of tumultuous suspense and whip-smart comedy—is just a guy talking on the phone.

It helps, of course, that said guy is Leonardo DiCaprio, one of our last true movie stars. He plays Bob Ferguson, a lapsed revolutionary whose stormy past as an ideological militant has long since subsided into a cloud of bong smoke and disorientation. With his scraggly facial hair and his fried brain cells, Bob seems an unlikely hero of a decades-spanning epic from the acclaimed director of Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. But One Battle After Another, which Anderson adapted from Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, has no interest in being bound by expectation or convention. It is a wildly ambitious picture that takes as its subject no less than the precarity of the American experiment, yet it is also an intimate family melodrama—a poignant tale of darkened souls clawing their way back toward the light. Read More

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Splitsville, Twinless, and the Offbeat Romantic Comedy

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Dakota Johnson in Splitsville; Dylan O'Brien and James Sweeney in Twinless

It’s been a rough two decades for the romantic comedy. Twenty years ago, the summer box office was already showing signs of intellectual-property creep, but nestled amid the Star Wars prequel and the Batman origin story and the Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton remakes were two smash-hit original rom-coms: Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. (You could also throw in Mr. and Mrs. Smith, depending on your level of genre pedantry.) In 2025, you need to scroll all the way down to #18 before finding a single romantic comedy, Materialists (and calling that one a rom-com is a bit of a stretch); at a modest $37M, it’s the only rom-com of the year to scrape its way past $3M domestic.

Were studios just waiting to unleash their laugh riots until after Labor Day? Whatever the reason, last weekend saw the release of two new comedies that, while not strictly adhering to rom-com conventions, nevertheless serve as a welcome change of pace for anyone exhausted by all of the comic-book adaptations and animated sequels. Neither exactly set the box office afire, which is a shame, given that one of the pleasures of a well-made romantic comedy is the joy of experiencing collective laughter and heartbreak with fellow patrons. That, and both of these happen to be pretty good. Read More

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