“While In the Loop is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory. The hand-held camera work, the hectic jump-cuts and the grubby visuals may resemble television, but the restless pacing and drab appearance … Read more
Whatever happened to Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake? It was released by Sony Pictures Classics six or seven weeks ago — February 6, 2026 — and then more or less sank beneath the waves. Where is it? Has it vaporized into thin air? One of Cannes ‘25’s most celebrated films was blown off by the … Read more
I’m just going to spit this out: Richard Brody‘s New Yorker review of Hasan Hadi‘s The President’s Cake is more eloquent and deeply felt than the Cake review I tapped out in Cannes nine months ago. Brody shares some of the same observations that I mentioned last year, but his review really digs in…it’s more … Read more
In this order & off the top of my head… Geza Rohrig in Son of Saul (‘15) Robert Duvall in To Kill A Mockingbird (‘62) Clint Eastwood in A Fistful of Dollars (‘64) Holly Hunter in The Piano (93) Ryan Gosling in Drive (‘11) Andy Serkis in Rise of the Planet of the Apes (‘11) … Read more
A bulletin from Hamptons resident and HE friendo Bill McCuddy… “After debuting at Telluride on 8.30, Ivy Meeropol‘s Ask E. Jean had a big hot-ticket screening at the Hamptons Film Festival on Saturday, 10.4. Carroll to McCuddy: “This is a film about how to beat Donald Trump, and that’s basically what my director Ivy Meeropol … Read more
My head is spinning from the mere effort of trying to make sense of Nick Schager’s summary of the allegedly jumbled, gravity-free, Jasper Johns-like, geek-splattered plot in James Gunn‘s Superman (WB, 7.11). Schager’s leaked Daily Beast review posted yesterday before being hastily taken down. Imagine trying to follow or make sense of this Warner Bros. … Read more
In A.O. Scott‘s N.Y. Times review of Shawn Levy‘s “Clint“, he notes that Levy’s judgments “mostly follow the critical consensus, but the mini-reviews embedded in the narrative are among the most amusing and illuminating parts of the book. “Levy can be witheringly succinct: ‘Ew. Just ew’ sums up his view of Breezy (’73), Eastwood’s little … Read more
What forms of prospective hell might be wrought by this threat of protectionist economic brutality? This declaration of retribution? This is rash, mad–king stuff. What are the likely consequences? I’m asking. An echo of Network s Arthur Jensen, thundering from the heavens: “You are threatening to meddle with the primal forces of nature, President Trump, … Read more
The broadly mocked all-female Blue Origin flight (Aisha Bowe, Amanda Nguyen, Gayle King, Katy Perry, Kerianne Flynn and Lauren Sánchez) happened on 4.14.25, a.k.a. “the Empty Coke Bottle flight”. It reached a height between 62 and 65 kilometers, or just above the Kármán line. The satirical Blonde Origin flight (three right-leaning women — Megyn Kelly, … Read more
Venice Film Festival honcho Alberto Barbera to Vanity Fair‘s Rebecca Ford on (a) Luca Guadagnino‘s Queer, (b) Todd Phillips‘ Joker: Folie a Deux and (c) the all-but-total diminishment, prestige and award-season-wise, of the Toronto Film Festival: Barbera on Queer: “It’s not an easy film. It’s very bold.” HE translation: Gushings of gay sex. Daniel Craig … Read more
[Initially posted six years ago — 8.12.18] If there’s one thing film twitter wants you to abandon, it’s your comfort zone. Be brave, step over the fence and experience the exotic, uncertain, challenging realms that exist outside of your little piddly backyard. Of course! Hollywood Elsewhere agrees that people who refuse to step outside of … Read more
Major acting awards should be about major effing delivery…grand-slamming it…soul, gravity, reaching deep inside. Not this time. Congrats to the architects of Lily Gladstone‘s identity campaign. The Best Actress Oscar is now almost certainly hers, and everyone in the room knows the meaning…the final value of this. SAG-AFTRA awards voters have been lowering industry property … Read more