Adventures in Words

  Sony Pictures poster and trailer via IMDb.com.  https://www.imdb.com/video/vi7128601/?ref_=ext_shr_em   History’s a mystery. The more biopics and period pieces I see this award season, the more I come to that unsettling conclusion. The only way we can look to the past is through the window of the present. The more we seek  Then , the more we run into  Now . As philosopher Sam Harris has pointed out, when you look through a window you catch a faint reflection of your face.  Some say we make up memories fresh, each and every time we have one. “ A Complete Unknown,” the biopic of Bob Dylan's early years in Greenwich Village, triggers musical memories for people of my generation with mythical almost mystical reverberations. For people even ten years younger, not so much. Apart from Timothée Chalamet fans, they don't share our quasi-religious fervor about seeing the film. It can wait for Netflix. Another cinematic time capsule this season is “Saturday Night,” ...

  Mikey Madison and Mark Eydelshteyn say Viva Las Vegas in “Anora.” © Neon photo and trailer via IMDb.com.  https://www.imdb.com/video/vi4145202713/?ref_=ext_shr_em   “Anora,” a screwball romantic comedy about a lap dancer who marries the son of a Russian oligarch has been likened to a “Pretty Woman” Cinderella story – only with less fairy tale and more raunch. Lots more raunch. In fact, the “Pretty Woman” comparison ends about halfway through the story. From then on, it's more reminiscent of zany Keystone Cops chases from the early days of silent moviemaking. Only now there's sound, the characters drive Escalades and Mercedeses and speak Russian.  More precisely, yell obscene epithets in Russian. Coney Island sex worker Anora – she prefers the name Ani (Mikey Madison) – can speak Russian. And yell obscene epithets in either language.  Madison's awesome performance – sexy, streetwise, explosive, hilarious … and quite lovable – along with writer/director Sean Bak...

Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg in “A Real Pain.”  © 2024 SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES photo and trailer via IMDb.com  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21823606/?ref_=ext_shr_em   “A Real Pain” is a real pleasure. It's brilliantly and touchingly written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, who also stars. Its four Golden Globe nominations include best comedy, along with acting and writing nods to Eisenberg and another acting nomination for Kieran Culkan. He's in the supporting category, but really is the star of the show. Just because it's a comedy, don't expect many belly laughs. Holocaust tourism isn't exactly a rich vein of comedy material. Instead it's an almost surreal concept … it would be theater of the absurd, if its reality weren't so g*d-damned awful. But filmmaker Eisenberg comes at the subject with such a genuine aching, such a probing curiosity and such emotional honesty, that a rich deep dive into human goodness fills the screen. And if it doesn't make y...

  Hugh Grant as Mr. Reed in “Heretic.”  https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2504771097/?ref_=ext_shr_em   Photo and trailer courtesy of A24 - © A24 via IMDB Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, frequent punchlines of the joke at this time of year, divide their Golden Globe nominations into two categories: Dramas, which usually dominate the Academy Awards; and everything else, which the HFPA lumps together as Comedy or Musical. There are even more categories and subsets in the TV nominations. This is a good way of multiplying the number of Big Stars   who will show up for the Golden Globe ceremony next Sunday on CBS.  Although the Globes aren't as much fun as they were when Ricky Gervais emceed and Jack Nicholson in his Ray-Bans was a fixture in the front row, the red-carpet soiree is still known for its open bar and tipsy attitude that separate the Globes from the more high-minded, and slightly stodgier Oscars, which will announce their nominat...

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in “Babygirl https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2219034137/  ref_=ext_shr_em   Photo and trailer courtesy of A24 - © A24 via IMDB.com Maybe if young actor Harrison Dickinson didn't play such a smug, arrogant creep, it would be easier to believe Nichole Kidman's character could instantly develop such a dangerous attraction to him in the new erotic thriller “Babygirl.” And maybe if there weren't a real person named Luigi Mangione seducing millions of social media followers with a similar posture of sexy entitlement as he faces murder charges for a cold-blooded killing, it would be easier to dismiss this kinky drama written and directed by Halina Reijn as pure fantasy. Either way, the movie is pretty much of a mess. It's getting a bit of buzz at the moment for Kidman's recent Golden Globe nomination, and for the –  gasp –  lengths she went to to earn it.  In case you've missed the sizzling ad campaigns, “Babygirl” opens with an app...

  Elle Fanning and  Timothée Chalamet  in "A Complete Unknown."    Photo and trailer via IMDB.com  https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2538325529/?ref_=ext_shr_em Even if you've heard the songs ten-thousand times, one of the many remarkable things about “A Complete Unknown” is remembering – or reliving – the sensation of hearing them for the first time. People who tear up just watching the trailer for this Bob Dylan biopic will know what I'm talking about.  People who don't – including a couple of generations who weren't around yet – have a lot to learn from writer-director James Mangold's magnificent retelling of Dylan's early years. They span his 1961 arrival in Greenwich Village and pilgrimage to the bedside of dying Woody Guthrie, to  the Newport Folk Festival  where he upended the folk music world he had championed by going electric in 1965. The movie features incredible Golden Globe-nominated performances – more like feats of channeling – by T...