Director: David Freyne
Writer: Patrick Cunnane, David Freyne
Stars: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner

Synopsis: In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.

“What happens when we die?” is a question that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time. There are all kinds of answers to this: a place in the clouds opens up, a reincarnation takes place, nothing at all, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, no one can really know the answer to the question because one only finds out when it’s time. Eternity, directed by David Freysne, answers this in its own way: a transit station where people who have passed on decide where to go next.

Larry and Joan (Barry Primus and Betty Buckley) have been married for 65 years, with a loving family surrounding them as they go about their lives. However, one day at a party, Larry dies and lands up in the transit station as his younger self (Miles Teller) and is given a week to decide what eternity he would like to spend the rest of his soul’s life in. Later, Joan arrives as her younger self as well (Elizabeth Olsen) and to her surprise, finds out that not only is Larry there waiting for her, but so is Luke (Callum Turner), Joan’s first husband who died 67 years ago in the Korean War and has been waiting since then for her. What results is a love triangle between the three as Joan has to decide who to spend eternity with before time runs out as, in the Afterlife transit hub, everyone only has a week to figure out where they go.

In many ways, the premise of Eternity is a nightmare to imagine, where someone meets the multiple loves of their life and all interacting with each other, and having to then figure out who to be with going forward. This is something even the movie acknowledges, having every scenario looked at skeptically as everyone from Joan to the Afterlife Coordinators Anna and Ryan (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early) weigh the pros and cons of Larry and Luke, while knowing full well how awkward and bizarre the situation is. The result is a slew of very entertaining performances from the entire cast, with hilarious work from Teller and Turner who try their best to win Joan’s affection, and Olsen has a really great time here trying to navigate the situation while time runs out. The scene stealers however are Randolph and Early, providing some of the funniest line deliveries and charming character turns of the movie, as they continue to compete against each other and try to make cases for Larry and Luke. As Joan goes on trips to the two potential eternities with them and both husbands confess their love for her, the romance and love is captured between them very effectively, and the sentimentality in those moments comes through in spades.

Freysne also plays into the self awareness and bizarre nature of Eternity well, with the Afterlife Hub shown like a convention floor that offers multiple different eternities to enter along with brochures to explain how they work, and advertisements on TVs that further embrace their silliness and euphoria, and even looking into eternities that are either too full or deactivated because of demand or being outdated. The production design and creativity on display is sublime, and the cinematography is incredibly vibrant and colorful, exploring every facet of the Hub in quirky ways and providing a lot of visual comedy. The playful score by David Fleming underlines the world of Eternity further, providing an enchanting feeling to the proceedings. As a result, on many levels, the movie succeeds in being a charming romantic comedy.

Where it runs aground, however, is in its exploration of deeper ideas and stretching itself a little too thin towards the third act. At almost 2 hours, the movie eventually runs out of steam before it wraps and some of its darker themes and conflicts are only addressed in a surface level manner, and much of the charm and humor it was running on doesn’t work as well and even gets a bit repetitive. There is a more complex movie underneath Eternity, but it never fully gets to shine. However, thanks to its stellar cast and clever moments in the first two acts, it still manages to be a solid watch overall and a trip worth taking to the Afterlife.

Grade: B+

Director: Lee Sang-il
Writer: Satoko Okudera
Stars: Ryo Yoshizawa, Ryusei Yokohama, Ken Watanabe

Synopsis: Nagasaki, 1964 – After the death of his father, the leader of a yakuza gang, 14-year-old Kikuo is taken under the wing of a famous Kabuki actor. Alongside Shunsuke, the actor’s only son, he decides to dedicate himself to this traditional form of theatre. For decades, the two young men grow and evolve together – from acting school to the grandest stages – amid scandals and glory, brotherhood and betrayals… one of them will become the greatest Japanese master of the art of kabuki.

Lee Sang-il’s Kokuho begins with an intriguing premise, as the son of a yakuza leader is plucked out of a life of uncertainty and bloodshed to be trained by one of the best Kabuki actors in the world. Sang-il immediately grabs our attention by setting its main protagonist, Kikuo (played by Sōya Kurokawa and Ryo Yoshizawa), as an already burgeoning actor who wants to pursue a life away from what his father wants him to be, in a world full of violence where no one will truly flourish and perhaps not even live long enough to see any success through. He performs in front of actor Hanai Hanjiro II (Ken Watanabe), who is already impressed by his skills as a Kabuki performer, and asks his father to speak with him.

Sadly, this occurs during the day when a rival gang attacks and kills Kikuo’s father in cold blood. He first gains the upper hand and wants to show strength to his son, but is instead gunned down in front of him. The experience profoundly changes Kikuo, who is taken under the wing of Hanjiro, in an attempt to have his own son, Shunsuke (played by Keitatsu Koshiyama and Ryusei Yokohama), take the craft of Kabuki seriously. Shunsuke is set to become Hanai’s heir when he eventually passes away, but his head isn’t so much in the art as is Kikuo, who thinks that, despite his Yakuza tattoos, he has a future in this artform, The first hour or so of Sang-il’s film is genuinely impressive, shot with a deft eye that makes each Kabuki performance feel as textured as it would be in a cinema, with subtitles highlighting the significance of each drama and ensuring each audience member understands what the performers are doing on stage. 

In lesser hands, this would feel like handholding, but Sang-il and writer Satoko Okudera give enough context for audiences to latch onto the characters and the importance of their gestures. Each look, or stomping of the foot, means something in the broader context of the play, which cinematographer Sofian El Fani highlights with a show-stopping use of shadows and striking, eye-popping colors. Even during more subdued sections, El Fani’s use of contrasting colors imbues each image with more meaning than you’d expect. Sang-il and Okudera adapt the book of the same name by Shuichi Yoshida and visualize each element of Kikuo’s journey, who is eventually renamed Toichiro when adopted by Hanjiro, with enough intimacy to make us feel close to the character at all times. 

Close-ups are Sang-il’s preferred shot composition, especially when homing in on the subtle face shifts Kikuo/Toichiro performs, making us aware of what he’s conveying to the audience watching him on stage and to us, viewing the film. We quickly understand why his performance works, while Shunsuke’s acting lacks conviction, and this is where a rivalry begins to brew. It’s also where the movie starts to lose steam and barely recovers by the time it trudges to a slow and painstakingly obvious denouement, tracking the lives of both performers from the cradle to the grave, instead of choosing which elements are the most meaningful and will have enough dramatic potency to make a lasting impact in the eyes of the viewer. 

In some cases, this could be the preferred aesthetic approach for a decade-spanning drama, but Kokuho’s pacing is extremely slow, perhaps too slow to justify such a hefty, 174-minute-long runtime, especially when its latter half is nowhere near as interesting as its amazing first hour, where Yoshizawa acts in ways he was never able to within Japan before joining the project. Of course, we all know how great an actor Ken Watanabe is. That said, for many westerners, seeing fresh faces like Yoshizawa and Ryusei Yokohama express a litany of complex emotions the way they do will quickly sideline the veteran Japanese actor’s talents in favor of a younger generation finally making themselves known not only to a specific public, but to the world. 

It’s a shame, then, that Kokuho gets painfully conventional and pedestrian during a jarring shift in atmosphere that makes the film feel much longer than it actually is, and refuses to explore the interiority of the protagonists in the same fashion Sang-il did in the movie’s first half. It also sidelines most of the themes developed in that introductory section for a more traditional approach that continuously keeps us at a distance from the movie’s main characters, even though this is where the tension begins to heat between them, and their kinship becomes forever fractured…until it isn’t…until it is, and then it isn’t anymore. 

Motivations become unclear, the characters aren’t as intriguingly fleshed out as they were, and the most interesting aspects of Kokuho begin to fall by the wayside. There’s still much to like and parse in Japan’s official entry for the 98th Academy Awards, but it genuinely feels like one of the rare cases of a film being unable to justify its lengthy runtime, which is made clear by the time the movie reaches its hour mark, or when Watanabe’s Hanjiro becomes less critical to the picture. Watching Kokuho, I was reminded of Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine, which Western critics may find similarities between, especially in how it explores most of the characters’ rawest emotions on the stage (it’s also just as long as Sang-il’s film), but the reason why that film was quickly hailed as a masterpiece was simple: it knew what to focus on and never stopped caring about anyone on screen. 

When Kokuho begins to lose sight of what it wants to talk about, the movie also begins to suffer. Sometimes, there’s a better – leaner – movie to make of this story, which likely would’ve provided a more considerable dramatic impact when it reaches its admittedly sobering conclusion, earning our tears naturally instead of pushing the old “now, cry” buttons. Sang-il’s ambition should still be admired, but the end result is far wobblier than I would’ve hoped.

Grade: B-

Director: Nicholas Hytner
Writer: Alan Bennett
Stars: Taylor Uttley, Ralph Fiennes, Emily  Fairn

Synopsis: A choral society’s male members enlist in World War I, leaving the demanding Dr. Guthrie to recruit teenagers. Together, they experience the joy of singing while the young boys grapple with their impending conscription into the army.

The Choral begins softly, almost tentatively, as if afraid to raise its voice. Then it gradually swells into something rich, layered, and unexpectedly resonant. At first glance, it’s a story about a struggling community choir in a northern English town. But underneath the harmonies lies a drama about loneliness, forgiveness, and the futility of war.

The film follows a choral society, during World War I, where men are being enlisted every day, leaving the chairmen no options but to hire demanding Dr. Guthrie to lead their beloved and respected choir. Dr. Guthrie has been living in Germany and many rumors surround him. His high expectations and artistic flair bring together a community to perform a reimagining of a beloved score by Elgar (The Dream of Geronitus).

The Choral does have a familiar standard “community band/choir comes together” formula, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. When the choir falters, the emotions are messy. When they succeed, the victories feel earned, not engineered.

The pacing is gentle but assured; the story never rushes its characters into growth, which makes their breakthroughs all the more affecting. This all leads to the final performance from the choir, which is nothing short of breathtaking. It’s not performed anywhere grand, with no large audience, and this was more moving than expected. As they sing, actors dressed as soldiers are being shot (not literally) on stage, and it’s incredibly thought-provoking and moving. 

Whilst the film is uplifting and filled with small moments of joy and humor, there is an underlying theme of sadness. This is done in subtle ways, showing very real themes other films in the war genre have not. An example being where women are receiving letters of their loved ones passing, and audiences are given time to see and feel their reactions – living this harrowing experience with them.  

Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Guthrie is strong, poised, and professional. With small moments of vulnerability, his character is one you’d follow to the ends of the earth. Robert Emms, as his sidekick pianist, does a wonderful job as someone who doesn’t have to tell, we can just see his feelings and fears through subtle looks and moments. His scene as a conscientious objector is especially powerful. Jacob Dudman as Cylde, who returns bruised from war, is honest and sweet. He has one small monologue which grounds the film and is a reminder of the pain which is to come to other young choir members who are excited to turn 18 and serve their country. The rest of the large ensemble cast all do an excellent job in bringing the story to life and singing their hearts out.

It would be impossible to discuss The Choral without acknowledging its strong ties to Yorkshire, not just as a backdrop, but as a creative force. The rolling hills, village halls, and brick terraces do more than create atmosphere; they root the film in a place where the community is both fragile and fiercely protected. As someone from and living in Yorkshire, watching this film, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of warmth and comfort. However, the downside to this is that the film isn’t universal. If you’re not from Yorkshire some of the jokes might go over your head. 

Screen Yorkshire’s involvement in bringing The Choral to life is palpable in every frame. Their support for regional filmmaking has allowed stories like this one to flourish without being swallowed by more commercial pressures. Yorkshire has long been a fertile ground for authentic, character-driven drama, and the fact that productions of this calibre continue to choose the region is a testament to the talent, infrastructure, and landscapes it offers. If you’re looking for other Yorkshire-based films that showcase the gentleness and grit of its people, Kes, Brassed Off, and Rita Sue and Bob Too have to be added to your watch list. 

The final shot of three cheeky choir boys, in their army uniform, happily waving goodbye with glee, to faces filled with fear, is simply beautiful. The Choral is a film for those who enjoy the war genre, but instead of seeing bullets and battlefields, we see what it was like for those back home. Trying to live amongst change and chaos, and finding community and comfort in the power of music. The Choral is tender without being sentimental, hopeful without being naïve, and anchored by performances that feel quietly remarkable.

Grade: B+

Director: David C. Roberts, Billy Shebar
Writer: Billy Shebar, David C. Roberts, Trish Dalton
Stars: David Byrne, Ping Chong, Philip Glass

Synopsis: The boundary-breaking composer and performer Meredith Monk overcame a hostile critical establishment to become one of the great innovators of her generation. Now, Monk faces mortality: can such singular work be performed without her?

New York City, in the 1970s, was a dirty, grimy, dangerous, and bankrupt place. In certain places, it meant large lofts and offices for wannabe artists, musicians, and dancers to move in with cheap rent. Out came another generation of talent with original and thought-provoking content that would change how we see and hear things today. A lot of them don’t have the nationwide recognition they deserve, but they influenced many of those nationwide names we do know. Monk In Pieces brings us the story of one of those unsung artists, Meredith Monk.

The story begins with Monk’s childhood and how her career was influenced from the very start of her life. Diagnosed with a rare eye disorder in which the two eyes are not coordinated, her mother signed Monk up for Dalcroze Eurhythmics. It integrates music and movement, allowing the person to walk and move their body in unison. To Monk, this allowed her to develop a creativity where music is visual and dance perfectly fits in her style, reflecting how she sees and hears things. It allowed her to open her mind to do things out of the box and push the boundaries of how we look and hear things. 

Moving into Greenwich Village, Monk and her theater troupe began their interdisciplinary work in song and dance on stage and screen. We see through raw footage everything they work on, including two films that were basically extended music videos, continuing to pull out tricks from Monk’s past, and how much was never really covered by traditional media. It’s a stepping stone for each of her works with the side visits of her family and personal life, like how she’s in the same loft and her pet turtle from fifty years ago is alive, to interviewing her ex for insight of Monk’s off-stage life.

As Monk made her name in the 1970s and ‘80s, the documentary reveals how much the mainstream critics reviled her work while inspiring her contemporaries. Infamously, one review of The New York Times described Monk’s choreography as “a disgrace to the name of dancing.” Yikes. Tell that to David Byrne, who is interviewed and has always been a fan; just thinking about it, Byrne’s ideas as a solo artist and with The Talking Heads could not have been the way they are if it weren’t for Monk. Byrne credits her for a major scene from his film True Stories. In an archive interview, pianist Philip Glass even praises Monk when he says, “She, among all of us, was – and still is – the uniquely gifted one.”

Directors Billy Shebar and David C. Roberts have created a mosaic about a woman looked over and unheard of by the new generation (like me) that finally reaches its eclipse. The film ends with her in her 80s giving up her opera direction of Atlas, one of her more acclaimed works, for someone else to control as she realizes the end for her is near. Monk In Pieces is not a documentary that breaks down the context of her work and goes too deep into Meredith’s psyche, which is a shame because while someone may learn about her and the work she’s put into, the documentary only goes so far as it wants to in getting into the heart of Monk’s genius.

Follow me on X: @brian_cine (Cine-A-Man)

Grade: B-

Director: Emma Tammi
Writer: Scott Cawthon
Stars: Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Lail, Piper Rubio

Synopsis: One year has passed since the supernatural nightmare at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza. Former security guard Mike has kept the truth from his 11-year-old sister, Abby, concerning the fate of her animatronic friends. When Abby sneaks out to reconnect with Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy, she sets into motion a terrifying series of events that reveal dark secrets about the true origin of Freddy’s.

Video game movies have been around for decades, but they’ve never reached the extreme heights of success within the film industry until very recently. From the slow rise of The Sonic the Hedgehog trilogy to the revitalization of Mortal Kombat in movies, videogame adaptations have clearly been on fire, and the mega success of the first Five Nights at Freddy’s, is no exception. The first film, despite its negative critical reception, was a smash success and was seen as a roaring comeback for the creator of the game series, Scott Cawthon. So of course, they were going to make a sequel, but unfortunately, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is even more of a pathetic attempt at a film adaptation than its predecessor. You can feel every moment of this sequel trying to up the ante in the scares and presentation, but it’s all let down by abysmal jumpscares, laughably bad dialogue, and a screenplay so focused on dumping as much game lore and references as possible that it barely resembles a complete film. The children and die-hard fans this sequel is clearly targeted for will likely be the only audiences appeased, but they deserve better than a sequel that insults their intelligence and easily cements itself as one of the year’s absolute worst films.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 picks up about one year after the events of the first, with Mike (Josh Hutcherson) still reeling from his experience at the long-abandoned Freddy’s Pizzeria, but he’s doing his best to help his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) and new friend from the previous film, Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail) forget about the trauma they all experienced. While Vanessa tries to get over the pain that her evil father, William Afton (Matthew Lilliard), inflicted upon her for so many years, Abby still misses the memories she formed with her animatronic friends. In the background of these events, unwanted guests lurking about in the original Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria and darker secrets about the past of Freddy’s are uncovered, surrounding yet another mysterious child death in the ‘80s. 

The central issue that destroys Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 from the get-go is the screenplay and story at its center. One would imagine that having the creator of the games himself as the sole screenwriter would yield, at the very least, more interesting results, but Cawthon’s script only seems concerned with pouring as much lore and easter eggs from the games as possible. For all its many faults, at least the first film had a clear semblance of basic plot developments and structure, but this sequel simply lacks interest and decides to dump monotonous, convoluted lore about the formation of other FNAF characters, like the marionette who acts as this film’s antagonist. Not only is the explanation of the marionette’s conceit preposterous, but it adds to the further problem of every character in this film acting as an exposition machine; every performance in the movie truly feels like an “in it for the paycheck” experience, and it only adds more to the tedious experience of watching the story unfold.

Then there’s the direction of the film itself, which has a whole other set of issues. Director Emma Tammi clearly wants to lean into more genre elements than the first film ever entertained, so it’s a shame that they’re so poorly conceived here. The film often uses the laziest loud jump scares imaginable to scare audiences, and there’s absolutely no innovation to be found in the horror besides ambient quiet followed by loud noises or crazy stuff flying at the screen. It remains the most annoying type of way to execute on elevating tension and is predictable nearly every time. Matters are not helped by the film’s PG-13 rating, which only hampers any potential terror that could be witnessed in the kills that are so clearly meant to be show-offs. 

To top it all off, as an irony of sorts, the film doesn’t even have an ending, choosing to instead leave jingling keys in front of the eyes of mega fans, teasing what’s next for the future, essentially encapsulating the core problem with this movie. FNAF 2 is only focused on teasing and providing for the fans first and actually forming a cohesive film second, and there’s a world where both can be done with balance to provide an experience that can be enjoyable to everyone, rather than a jumbled mess for anyone who isn’t initiated.

The sole positive aspect of this sequel, like the first, remains the great work done by Jim Henson’s creature shop on the titular animatronics, but Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is devoid of quality in nearly every other aspect. From its baffling screenplay to its laughable attempts at scares and developments between these characters, this sequel is truly adrift and only exists to tease and jingle keys rather than providing anything else worthy of substance, cementing it as a truly hollow experience.

Grade: D-

Director: Marshall Curry
Stars: Julianne Moore, David Remnick

Synopsis: The New Yorker’s centennial reveals behind-the-scenes access to editors, writers, and archives of this culturally vital magazine, one of print’s last survivors.

When we speak of The New Yorker, we’re referring to one of America’s most enduring and idiosyncratic publications. Born in 1925, it has devoted itself to long-form journalism, fiction, cartoons, and that unmistakable New York voice. The magazine has straddled the literary and journalistic, the high-brow and the whimsical, and, in doing so, has built a reputation for rigorous fact-checking, sophisticated storytelling, and cover art that often speaks volumes before the first word is read. Now, in the Netflix documentary The New Yorker at 100 (directed by Marshall Curry), the magazine reflects on its century-long life as the makers shine a light on its inner workings.

Journalism is in an age of “fake news,” battling authenticity and fighting for the audience’s attention. In this documentary, we’re invited behind the scenes: from the editorial meetings to the cartoon-selection room, from the obsessive fact-checkers to staffers debating comma usage. The New Yorker at 100 offers a satisfying peek into a world people think they know about, but this film will open their eyes. We witness the magazine’s downtown, fancy New York offices and the homes or haunts of writers, showing that, even in our digital era, this print institution still insists on craft and precision.

Visually and structurally, the film is tidy and pleasant. Like most documentaries, it uses archival material alongside present-day footage. There are bright colors, along with examples of their work and what has inspired it. Narrated by Julianne Moore (whose voice is gentle yet authoritative), we hear from contributors like Hilton Als, Roz Chast, and Ronan Farrow (plus celebrity fans such as Sarah Jessica Parker and JonHamm) to anchor the magazine’s cultural impact. There are clips from TV series and films such as Family Guy and Seinfeld, which mention The New Yorker. 

However, the documentary often stays at a surface level. For an institution with such a rich and sometimes controversial past (including journalistic missteps, cultural blind-spots, and shifting editorial ambitions), the film plays it safe. The documentary needed to probe into the tensions we’re seeing in the industry, from AI to environmental factors around printing. It briefly touches on the controversy the printed covers have had, especially when they’ve printed pictures of American Presidents such as George W. Bush and Donald Trump. But I still never felt like we got to the nitty-gritty of what goes on behind the scenes of The New Yorker.

Its structure, too, sometimes leans toward a checklist: show the editing room, show the covers, show the writers, show the cartoons, celebrate the centennial. The beat-to-beat is pleasing but mundane. If you’re already familiar with The New Yorker’s history, the film offers reminders ratherthan revelations. For newcomers, it’s a fine primer, but it may feel slightly cautious to veterans of media-industry documentaries.

The interviews are enjoyable, especially when walking around NYC; they felt lively, and audiences got to see some of the famous sights. Watching artists, writers and critics work, draw, and discuss their inspirations and experiences over the years, both good and bad, is eye-opening. The section on 9/11 is very poignant and moving. 

Another minor reservation: the pacing, though generally competent, occasionally lags when the film relies too heavily on talking-head interviews without sufficient counteraction. The tone remains reverent, which is understandable given the centennial context, but somewhat limits the documentary’s capacity to critique its subject as much as celebrate it.

That said, the film succeeds in making the magazine’s internal rituals accessible and, yes, even amusing (there’s a section on the fact-checkers and the word ‘vaunted’ that made me laugh). You come away with genuine admiration for the people who persist in making a magazine despite the odds. The documentary is infused with affection for the magazine’s form, for the craft of journalism, and for New York, which gives it an uplifting, feel-good quality without descending into purely nostalgic fluff.

The documentary gets very interesting, but sadly, only 15 minutes from the end. This is where we get a glimpse into how dangerous journalism can be, and how much more dangerous it’s getting. Here, the pace picks up, and we see the stresses of getting publication-ready on time and, like all good documentaries, we end with words of wisdom and a serious, hopeful attitude for the future. The New Yorker at 100 is an informative, engaging, and well-crafted tribute to a singular publication. It does not bite deeply into the messier corners of media transformation, and it skirts bigger questions about the magazine’s future. But if your interest lies in learning how the magazine has come to mean what it does, and how one small team of “obsessives” still insists on excellence, you’ll find it satisfying. For those seeking a darker, more interrogative media documentary, this might not be the boldest option. It’s worth watching, and worth reflecting on what it means for journalism’s next century.

Grade: B+

Director: Josh Safdie
Writer: Josh Safdie, Ronald Bronstein
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa A’zion

Synopsis: Marty Mauser, a young man with a dream no one respects, goes to hell and back in pursuit of greatness.

In a year full of underwhelming disappointments, A24’s Marty Supreme is here to save the day. Josh Safdie’s seventh directorial feature, only his second time helming a film solo, and the first since his debut, The Pleasure of Being Robbed, is a slice of cinema unlike anything you’ve ever seen. An exhilarating sports epic that transports you to another time and place, it strips away the noir-soaked urban sheen of the period. Safdie replaces it with hard-boiled comedy, bustling claustrophobia, and overwhelming anxiety.

This isn’t a New York City where glamour is front and center. Marty Supreme jumps off the screen, big and bold, riveting and exciting, eclectic and alive with an electric charge. That’s because this is a story that puts the downtrodden front and center. The movie is for the dreamers, the workers, the hustlers, the bustlers, and the barstool regulars circling the drain and barely keeping their heads above water. These are the New Yorkers who give the city its color, vibe, and flair. 

For those who revel in just as much moral ambiguity in the shadows as those Big Apple corporate fat cats, that’s where Timothée Chalamet comes in. Rumor has it he was furious when he didn’t take home the little gold man known as Oscar last year for playing Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. This isn’t a performance that encompasses America in peacetime or the decade of great conformity. Safdie ignores the humble post-war politics, and America is always portrayed with post-war optimism. 

No, Chalamet delivers something different. Simply put, this is the best performance of his career. The actor, previously nominated for Call Me By Your Name and launched into superstardom by the Dune franchise, drops the boyish charm, sex-symbol status, and tortured-soul charisma for a caustic, motor-mouth energy fueled by narcissistic ambition—magnetic, chaotic, and a sight to behold.

Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, the star of, at least according to Marty, the fastest rising sport in the world, ping-pong. He’s a showman: arrogant and fiery, the John McEnroe of table tennis, frequently antagonizing his opponents and violating the boundaries and personal space of referees and corporate officials. Marty doesn’t want to live his life blending into the background. Marty wants to be front and center. He doesn’t want to step into the spotlight. No, he expects the spotlight to follow him.

There isn’t a person Marty won’t use or manipulate to get to the top. For instance, he steals money from his uncle’s safe to finance his trip to Europe for an international table tennis tournament. It doesn’t matter that he got a married pet-store owner, Rachel (She Rides Shotgun’s Odessa A’zion), pregnant; took advantage of his best friend Wally (Tyler, The Creator), mooching off his mother (Fran Drescher), or trying to con a past-her-prime actress (Gwyneth Paltrow) and her wealthy magnate husband (Kevin O’Leary, no, that isn’t a typo).

That’s the bushel of carrots when it comes to Marty Supreme, written by Josh Safdie, who co-wrote the script with longtime Safdie brother editor and producer Ronald Bronstein (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), and he swings an awfully ambitious stick here. Marty Supreme works on many levels, being part sports film, crime thriller, and dark social chaos comedy. The movie is also heavily influenced by the subtext and themes that begin to bubble to the surface.

There is a fascinating scene of postwar surrealism, what I’ll call “the honey scene,” that is bound to divide audiences. Many will question why it’s even in the film, but it’s a moment unlike anything that has been done before. Featuring the great Géza Röhrig (To Dust, Son of Saul), it’s a sequence that would make Tadeusz Borowski proud. The imagery blends dissociation, survival, shared communal sustenance, and humiliation. This is paired with O’Leary’s “Vampire” fat cat, a character offering a subtle nod to our own era, with capitalist kings running the country.

Of course, this being a solo Josh Safdie film, it feels like he’s the brother who loves to rev up the action with his signature urban-pressure-cooker comedy. The pacing is fervent, and Chalamet delivers a performance and plays a character you somehow can’t stand yet still find yourself rooting for. The comedic chaos of anxiety, ambition, lust, and self-loathing drives him, and Chalamet brings to the surface a deeply seated insecurity caught between ego and shame.

Chalamet’s turn is a tornado of contradictions, masterfully fascinating, as his manic ambition struggles to break free of societal views and labels. The surrounding characters heighten the comedy, with Safdie’s humor emerging through terrible decisions, escalating disasters, and awkward social collisions that make you laugh while covering your eyes. All of this is elevated by Josh Safdie’s signature aesthetic: gritty neorealism, immersive sweat-and-grime atmosphere, and striking street casting that gives the performances a raw, natural feel.

That being said, Marty Supreme is remarkably accessible and a crowd-pleaser for mainstream audiences. The experience is wild, kinetic, and deliriously enjoyable from start to finish. A movie that is destined to become a classic because no one is making movies like this today. Josh Safdie’s third chapter of his Anxiety Cinema trilogy is unmistakably alive and an experience all its own. 

Go see this film!

You can watch Marty Supreme only in theaters starting December 16th!

Grade: A+

Creators: Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer
Stars: Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Winona Ryder

Synopsis: In 1980s Indiana, a group of young friends witness supernatural forces and secret government exploits. As they search for answers, the children unravel a series of extraordinary mysteries.

The first four seasons of Netflix’s smash-hit streaming series Stranger Things were genuinely thrilling, funny, and frightening armrest-grabbing television that may have defined the era of binge-worthy TV. The Duffer Brothers’ creation set the gold standard for mainstream popcorn escapism, elevating the genre into genuine art or at least an art form defined by its audience. These freaks and geeks we have welcomed into our homes have taken us on a thrilling and terrifying ride. 

However, Stranger Things’ final season has, unfortunately, been a massive disappointment. Not because the series won’t be satisfying for its fervent fanbase, but because it recycles the same thrills and chills on auto-repeat, lacking new ways to put these beloved characters on their toes and settling into an unmerited mythology that skips over proper setups. The characters now feel redundant, the world-building has grown tiresome, and the era’s unique themes that once made the show stand out are all but a distant memory.

Stranger Things’ final season hasn’t reinvented itself as much as it’s found itself stuck in predictability, still clinging to the nostalgia from better seasons past. 

The fifth and final season picks up in the fall of 1987, a few months after the events of the fourth season, when the gates of Vecna’s (Horizon: An American Saga’s Jamie Campbell Bower) hellish realm have opened in Hawkins, Indiana. The group is trying to live their everyday lives, but behind the scenes, they’re hiding Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) from the American military while planning to kill One. Helping to hide and train Eleven are Hopper (Thunderbolts’ David Harbour) and Joyce (Beetlejuice’s Winona Ryder), her legally adoptive parents.

Of course, this is all happening around the time of Will’s (Noah Schnapp) disappearance, highlighting the Duffer Brothers’ penchant for circular storytelling. However, the team is still down one person, as Max (The Whale’s Sadie Sink) remains in a coma, with Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) always by her side. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) is still mourning the loss of Eddie (Joseph Quinn). There is also the ongoing love triangle involving Nancy (Natalia Dyer), her boyfriend Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), and Steve (Joe Keery).

The group begins an operation to send Hopper into the Upside Down to kill their nemesis, who is hell-bent on ending the world. With Robin (Wildcat’s Maya Hawke) running the local radio station and sending coded messages, Hopper sneaks onto a military transport—only to find himself in immediate danger. Meanwhile, as Mike (It’s Finn Wolfhard) tries to figure out why his little sister Holly is talking to an imaginary friend, she is taken by Vecna, who uses her as bait to draw Eleven out to save her.

Stranger Things’ fifth and final season suffers from a phenomenon called the Mystery Box effect, which, frankly, was an issue in Volume Two of Season Four’s pendulum chapter. When Vecna was revealed at the end of Episode Seven, it was a jaw-dropping admission. We knew most of the characters would survive, and everyone knew Eddie was a knockoff character. Now, in the final season, making Holly (Nell Fisher) older and using a character who has hardly had a presence as a significant driving plot point is highly contrived. 

The show suffers from Netflix endgame fatigue, which is very real, and the loss of complexity results in only two simple outcomes: either the villain or the hero wins. The other issue is that all the episodes are over sixty minutes long, so there is a lot of narrative fluff in between. It doesn’t help that most of these kids lack the skills to play three-dimensional adult characters, which is the real reason Wolfhard and Schnapp were kept hidden for most of last season. There’s improvement, but they need to be insulated by the large cast to make their scenes work.

This, of course, will happen with any thriller as popular as Stranger Things, especially a show with so much mystery, character development, and world-building. For example, another series with a fervent fanbase, Lost, collapsed under the pressure of creating endless mysteries. With the Duffer Brothers’ mystery, however, the story leads to a simple, unsatisfying endgame that lacks complexity.  

Even with the addition of Linda Hamilton (The Terminator) as Dr. K, running a military base in the Upside Down feels out of place and out of character for a series that takes significant jumps without showing enough patience, taking narrative leaps past its audience without earning those choices. Of course, the series is exciting enough in spots, displaying some glorious special effects that lead to a few very scary scenes. But once you’ve seen one Demigod, you’ve seen them all. 

However, the twist at the end of episode three, titled “The Turnbow rap,” had a fun moment that almost had me recommending the first batch of episodes. Of course, only the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season were screened for most critics. So it is impossible to know where the show is headed or how it will end satisfyingly. Frankly, that is Netflix’s fault for not screening all the episodes for critics and not trusting their product. Based on the limited number of people who were given screeners, I can now see why.

You can stream Stranger Things Season 5 Volume 1 on Netflix starting November 26th!

Grade: C