Adventures in Words

  Margot Robbie in “Babylon.”  Paramount Pictures/Scott Garfield photo via IMDB Not since the Bible has wretched excess looked as excessive – or as wretched – as it does in “Babylon.” Damien Chazell's three-hour epic vision of the birth of the movie industry shows what can happen when a young filmmaker experiences too much success – six Oscars out of 14 nominations – too early in his career.  Granted, all those prizes were well deserved for “La La Land,” a shimmering, singular work that updated vintage movie musical formulas for a new millennium. But in this return visit to Hollywood mythmaking, he takes us behind the screen to watch the studio machinery cranking out the magic. It's an inadvertent reminder that sausage doesn't taste as good after you realize how it's made. The story begins in 1926 when, on a dusty dirt road through the palm trees and sprawling citrus orchards of greater Los Angeles, Kinoscope studio is making movies.  The “studio” is actually a converte

  Brendan Fraser in “The Whale.”  A24 photo via IMDB Superheroes, fantasy warriors and cocky jet pilots still rule the box office, but at this time of year guys like Charlie show up on movie screens. Played almost unrecognizably by one-time action hero Brendan Fraser, Charlie is a 600-pound online English teacher who keeps his camera turned off when he teaches his zoom classes. When we first meet him he's in the throes of a near heart attack masturbating to gay porn. His preferred method of suicide is eating himself to death in his squalid apartment in rural Idaho. After the last blog about “The Menu,” “The Whale” carries on a recurring theme this movie awards season: unappetizing movies about food.  But before crossing “The Whale” off your to-do list, you might want to Google the six-minute standing ovation Fraser received when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. That reception brought him to tears, followed by awards and recognition culminating with a recent Golden Globe no

Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy in “The Menu.”  20 th  Century Studios/Eric Zachanowich photo via IMDB “ We have reached the base camp of Mount Bullshit.” So says Margot Mills (Anya Taylor-Joy) as she eavesdrops on her fellow diners awaiting a meal at what may be the most exclusive restaurant on the planet. It's on idyllic little Hawthorne Island. You have to catch a boat – a yacht, actually – to get there.The reservation list is limited to 12, they pay more than $12,000 each. The line pretty well sums up the movie.  (A redeeming quality of writing a blog like this– as opposed to film reviews for a daily newspaper – is that you can quote a sentence like that without worrying about how some editor or irate reader feels about it. It doesn't make up for getting paid for your words, but it is, uh, liberating.) Obviously the clientel for this elite eatery comes from that much maligned demographic, the one-percenters. They're happy to pay that big tab to call themselves  foodie

Tom Cruise in “Top Gun: Maverick.”  Paramount Pictures photo via IMDB Wait a minute. Isn't the first rule of Oscar nominations that they have to go to movies nobody sees?  So why is “Top Gun: Maverick” pacing predictions for a best picture nod, after recently nabbing top prizes from the Producers Guild of America and the prestigious American Film Institute? It added a best picture Golden Globe nomination earlier this week. As opposed to so many  prestige pictures  presented “for your consideration” at this time of year, this one is at the other end of the spectrum. It was released last summer. It doesn't require a high IQ, or endless empathy and concern for the human condition to grasp its meaning.. It's accessible, without pandering to the lowest common denominator. You learn a lot about flying a jet fighter before it's over. It's not for a niche audience – it's for everyone. People who have told me (without my asking) that I needed to see it range from my bank

Paul Dano, Mateo Zoryan and Michelle Williams at “The Greatest Show on Earth.”     Amblin Entertainment photo via IMDB Chalk up the most successful career in Hollywood to a train wreck. Steven Spielberg turns the camera back on himself and his family to tell the story of “The Fabelmans.” It's his portrait of the artist as a young man … well, actually beginning when he was a very young boy and his parents Burt and Mitzi (Paul Dano and Michelle Williams) took him to see his very first movie, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Among all the action in Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 epic about a circus troupe was a colossal train wreck that had little Sammy Fabelman (Mateo Zoryan) slack-jawed in the audience. When he received a shiny new Lionel electric train set the following Hanukkah, he couldn't wait to put a toy car on the track, commandeer his dad's Bell & Howell, and reenact the disaster. The rest, as they say, is history. After creating so much screen mythology for the last h

    20 th   Century Studios photo via IMDB Whether or not he wins anything, the movie awards season belongs to Colin Farrell. The chamelionlike actor totally submerged his leading man credentials to star as one of the wonky cave-diving heroes of “Thirteen Lives,” recently reviewed in this space. He stars in the futuristic artificial intelligence drama “After Yang,” that's also in this year's awards hunt. But the charismatic Irishman's portrayal of Padraic Suilleabhain  in “The Banshees of Inisherin” stands above anything he's ever done on a screen before – no small feat in an amazingly varied career. It's an unforgettable performance surrounded by a perfectly cast ensemble, matching him scene for scene. We may well be hearing the names of his “In Bruges” co-star Brendan Gleeson along with Kerry Condon and Barry Keoghan in the supporting categories on Oscar night. Ironically, the film's real star is London-born writer-director-playwright Martin McDonagh. He puts

  What “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is about depends on where, in time and space, you're looking at it from. You know, like which universe … ? From ours, it looks like the tale of harried Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) who lives above the laundry she owns in a cramped apartment with her ineffectual husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan). She's frazzled trying to plan a new year's party for the laundromat clientele that her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) doesn't want to attend unless she can bring her girlfriend Becky (Tallie Medel). Evelyn's figuring that won't go down so well with her father Gong Gong (James Hong), who has recently arrived from China.  As though all that weren't enough, she's got an appointment with the IRS agent from hell (Jamie Lee Curtis), for a variety of tax irregularities. Among them are all her business licenses. She doesn't understand the difference between a business and a hobby, her husband tries to explain to the IRS agent, who