Dolls
Similar28 Days Later (2002), Alien (1979), Dawn of the Dead (2004), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), Momo (1986), mother! (2017), Saw (2004), Shaun of the Dead (2004), Silent Hill (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Fifth Element (1997), The Shining (1980), The Thing (1982),
Watch afterJoker (2019),
Ethan Coen goes solo for a raunchy, silly comedy-thriller.
When the Coen brothers announced back in 2021 that they were taking a temporary break from working together, the anguished wails of film nerds could be heard around the world. It wasn’t anything personal – indeed, they've reportedly reunited to work on a horror movie – but rather just a desire to do their own thing separately for a little while. Their time apart resulted in two very different projects: Joel’s critically acclaimed The Tragedy of Macbeth, and now, Ethan’s Drive-Away Dolls, a good-naturedly raunchy crime caper that occasionally flounders under the weight of stale, fetishy stereotypes.
The film opens with a gruesome death and a briefcase that needs to make its way from Philadelphia to Tallahassee. Also about to hit the road south are a pair of friends, brash, free-spirited Jamie (Margaret Qualley) and buttoned-up, bookish Marian (Geraldine Viswanathan). Marian wants to pay her aunt a visit, while Jamie, kicked out of her apartment by her fed-up girlfriend (Beanie Feldstein), has nothing better to do and goes along for the ride, hoping to loosen up Marian along the way.. Continue Reading →
The Holdovers
SimilarA Christmas Carol (1938), About a Boy (2002), Apocalypse Now (1979), Bed and Board (1970), Brazil (1985), Donnie Brasco (1997), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Fargo (1996), Forrest Gump (1994), Full Metal Jacket (1987), GoodFellas (1990), Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), JFK (1991), Monster (2003), Mystic River (2003), Oldboy (2003),
Primal Fear (1996) Scrooge (1951), Shrek the Third (2007), Solaris (1972), The Apartment (1960), The Departed (2006), The Fisher King (1991), The Holiday (2006),
The Party 2 (1982) The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Silent Partner (1978), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005), The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2022), To Die For (1995), Wonder Boys (2000), You've Got Mail (1998),
Watch afterAmerican Fiction (2023), Anatomy of a Fall (2023),
Barbie (2023) Killers of the Flower Moon (2023),
Oppenheimer (2023) Poor Things (2023), Society of the Snow (2023), The Killer (2023), The Marvels (2023),
StarringGillian Vigman,
StudioMiramax,
After stumbling with Downsizing, Alexander Payne bounces back with a gentle & witty comedy-drama.
The artist Dmitry Samarov one said to me that the ratio of good to bad late periods in an artist's life was depressing to consider. For every Sir Edward William Elgar there was an Eric Clapton (my example, not his), and that it was rare to see someone sharpen as they aged. Now, I like Dmitry and certainly respect his opinion, but I can’t help but feel that when film overtook painting as the dominant artwork that people engage with, the ratio shifted towards bizarre experimentation and welcome self-reflection as much as dull self reflection.
Take for instance 62 year old Alexander Payne, who, after the biggest disaster of his career (2017’s confused parable Downsizing), has started his fourth decade as a director by leaning hard back into what he knew (and what the royal “we” enjoyed) and rediscovered himself with The Holdovers, a movie no one can seem to stop comparing to Hal Ashby. No mean feat, of course, but even that sells its virtues short. This is no mere homage, no mere return to form, this is the movie that Payne’s been hoping to make since his 90s heyday, a film that earns both its jaundiced gaze and its catharsis. Continue Reading →