Screen Test

                     Stellan Skarsgard and Elle Fanning in “Sentimental Value.”  Neon photos via IMDb.com. Why do genius film artists like Norway's Jochim Trier make movies like “Sentimental Value”?  Why fill a movie screen with the pain some fathers and daughters have expressing their love?  That question crossed my mind as I watched the fragile drama unfold. But by the time it reached its precarious victory in the last scene, I had my answer. Winner of this year's Grand Prize at Cannes, nominated for numerous Golden Globes, expect to see “Sentimental Value” up for a lot of Oscars, too, including Best Picture in English  and  Foreign Language. Stellan Skarsgard delivers a masterful if maddening performance as Gustav Borg, who divorces his wife when his daughters are still young girls, but returns to the beloved family home for his ex-wife's funeral. His reappearance rekindles unresolved resentments for the ...

                       Timothy Chalamet on the move in “Marty Supreme.”   Photo courtesy of A24 via IMDb.com. Last year he played Bob Dylan. Now he's playing champion-level ping-pong. Is there any challenge Timothée Chalamet can't master? Then again, playing the role of Marty Mauser – otherwise known as “Marty Supreme” – is an act of supreme self-confidence. Such   chutzpah  as they might say in the Lower East Side Jewish neighborhood where the fast-talking 23-year-old lives in his mother's apartment.  Loosely based on the life of Marty Reisman, a table-tennis champ and brash hustler in the early 1950s, director/co-writer Josh Safdie creates pitch-perfect period settings around Chalamet's performance that sucks all the air out of whatever room he's in.  The faces of the large cast add to the air of authenticity. With thick New Yawk accents coming out of their mouths, rarely have actors looked less like ...

  Emily Blunt and Dwayne Johnson in “The Smashing Machine.”  A24 photo via IMDb.com Pairing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson with Emily Blunt in 2021's “Jungle Cruise” was a stroke of casting genius.  Their comic bickering as they rode the rapids rekindled the chemistry of Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn on their own leaky boat called “The African Queen.” Dwayne and Emily elevated the comedy up a notch or two from just being one more Disneyland ride spinoff. Together again, the pair navigate far more treacherous waters in “The Smashing Machine,” a biopic about '90s mixed martial arts and UFC champ Mark Kerr. The stars both got well-earned Golden Globe nominations for their efforts, but there aren't many laughs this time around. Kerr's sport was a hybrid of wrestling, boxing, kicking and basically pulverizing one's opponent. The rule books of the various extreme-fighting sanctioning bodies, some in Japan, were always works in progress. Biting was ruled out relatively ...

      Laura Dern, George Clooney and Adam Sandler in “Jay Kelly.”  Peter Mountain/Netflix photo via IMDb.com Jay Kelly the movie star lives in a bubble. “Jay Kelly” the movie lives in a bubble, too. It's the bubble of Malibu mansions and private jets to Paris; of entourages of enablers; of hundred-million-dollar lawsuits; of magazine covers as mirrors for your face; of millions of strangers all around the world who think they love you. Jay Kelly looks a lot like George Clooney. Wondering whether the icon is playing a role or playing himself is the most fun part of this star-studded sentimental dramedy written and directed by Noah Baumbach. The Netflix production was gorgeously filmed from Hollywood to Italy. Clooney just picked up a Golden Globe nomination for this glossy Hollywood version of an identity crisis … or as close as a superstar can get to one. Adam Sandler got a Globe nomination, too, for playing Jay's long-suffering manager Ron Sukenick. But it's Laura D...

             Jesse Buckley and Paul Mescal in “Hamnet.”  Photo by Agata Grzybowska - © 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC., via IMDb.com  After winning Oscars for Frances McDormand and herself by portraying contemporary America as “Nomadland,” director Chloé Zhao goes back 400 years to Elizabethan England to create her next masterpiece. It's called “Hamnet.” It's excruciating and profound. You probably won't get through it dry eyed. It breaks your heart … then makes it soar. Revolving around Jesse Buckley's force-of-nature performance, almost every name in the credits – beginning with executive producer Steven Spielberg – is an award nomination in the making.  Co-written by Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell from O'Farrell's historical novel, “Hamnet” is a love story. Many love stories, actually. The first is the fable of a Latin tutor named Will (Paul Mescal), who aspires to be a writer. He forgets all about the two boys he is teaching when he sees th...