You can tell right away that Mahershala Ali is going to be extra good in this. His character, Don Shirley, reminds me of James Baldwin. Viggo Mortensen‘s Tony Lip feels a little broad, maybe a little too predictably Sopranos-like, but Mortensen is too good of an actor to rely on stock cliches. Select Manhattan journos got an early looksee at Green Book this evening; presumably the same access is being offered in Los Angeles as we speak. I have a very good feeling about this.
HE’s Google-powered search engine has always worked well enough, but maybe I need to upgrade it or something. Because it’s a little bit stupid.
Last night I searched for my review of Susanna Nicchiarelli‘s Nico, 1988, which is currently playing at the Film Forum. (Here it is.) I’ve found that the engine works better if you use just one term, so I typed in “Nico”. The first thing it found were articles mentioning Nicolas Roeg (brilliant) and then Nicole Kidman (get the pattern?), Nicolas Cage, Nicole Holofcener, etc.. Then it finally explored articles mentioning the Teutonic blonde who sang with the Velvet Underground. You’d think that the search term “Nico” would bring up Nico articles first and then pieces on Roeg, Kidman and Cage, but no.
Nico, by the way, was going with the late Brian Jones around the time of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. Nico was 5’10 and Jones was 5’6″. I don’t think I could do that.
I had to focus on some non-column stuff today. Happens every so often. I try to never miss a day, etc.

There is no more impassioned fan of Alfonso Cuaron than myself, but this new Roma poster doesn’t make it. A couple of kids sharing an afternoon moment, and way back when Alfonso was one of those kids…I get it. This is going to sound stupidly on-the-nose, but the poster isn’t trying hard enough. Too sleepy, too laid back. All I know (and please don’t take this the wrong way) is that I glanced at it an hour ago and said to myself, “Nope, too passive.” I was there once, nine or ten years old, lost in a comic book, dreaming my life away. But when it comes to anticipating a hotshot award-season film by way of a single image, I want more. HE is totally on Team Alfonso, but I have to be honest here. I doubt if I’m alone on this.


“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...

The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner's Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg's tastiest and wickedest film -- intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...