February 2026

2025 OSCAR NOMINATIONS

       When 55 percent of the acting nominations come from three films—“Sinners,” “One Battle After Another” and “Sentimental Value”—it signals to me that either the Academy members need to see more movies or the voters have given up and just follow the critics Oscar predictions.

       While the Norwegian film is well written and acted (it would be in my Top 10 if I included foreign-language films), anyone who thinks it’s the best acted foreign film ever to reach our shores—no foreign film has ever had four (or even three) acting nominations—needs to spend more time reading subtitles.

       I’m not taking issue with any of those selections, but please Oscar voters, broaden your picks: Among the most blatant miscues this year are the omissions of Joel Edgerton’s sorrowful performance as a turn-of-the-century logger in “Train Dreams,” William H. Macy as a wise old man in the same film, Jennifer Lawrence having a nervous breakdown as a young mother in “Die My Love,” Glenn Close’s hilarious take on the ultimate church lady, Will Arnett as a budding standup comedian in “Is This Thing On?” and Benicio Del Toro’s as a determined tycoon in the satirical “The Phoenician Scheme.”

       For another example of the myopic nature of Academy voters, take a look at the nominees in adapted screenplay, casting (a new category), score, cinematography, editing and production design. Every contender represents one of the best picture nominees.

      On the topic of best picture picks: Did anyone other than racing enthusiasts imagine “F1: The Movie” as a best picture nominee last summer? I liked the film but it tells you how weak 2025 was for movies. If the voters wanted a popcorn movie in the competition they should have voted for the concluding chapter of “Mission: Impossible.”

     “Hamnet” and “Train Dreams” were the two best films I saw in 2025 so I’ll be rooting for those films (and Jessie Buckley’s heartbreaking performance) on March 15.

     Here’s my Top 10 as of now, with the hope that some hidden gem from 2025 will pop up at the last minute. My full “best of” list will appear on the blog next month.

 1  Hamnet (Chloe Zhao)

 2  Train Dreams (Clint Bentley)

 3  The Phoenician Scheme (Wes Anderson)

 4  Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper)

 5  Bugonia (Yorgos Lanthimos)

 6  A House of Dynamite (Kathryn Bigelow)

 7  Wake Up Dead Man (Rian Johnson)

 8  Warfare (Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza)

 9  Sinners (Ryan Coogler)

10  Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning (Christopher McQuarrie)

  

IS THIS THING ON?  (2025)

     Bradley Cooper’s three outings as a director seem, on the surface, quite different (“A Star Is Born” and “The Maestro” before the new one) but they all deal, to different degrees, with how to keep a marriage alive without each partner giving up their identity.

     In “Is This Thing On?” he smartly passes the lead role to someone else, the unpretentious, regular-guy TV and voice actor Will Arnett, who expertly captures the easily distracted, cluelessness of a middle-aged husband and father. Arnett’s Alex is married to Tess (Laura Dern), a former Olympian volleyball player who clearly seeks something more in her life than housemother.

     Separated and living alone in an apartment in Manhattan, he stumbles into a club having “open mike night,” signing up for a spot on the bill to avoid paying the cover (of course, he could have walked half-a-block and found another bar). In his few minutes on stage, he laments his marital situation, almost turning it into a therapy session.

     From that point on, he starts taking stand-up serious, showing up nightly at the Comedy Cellar and becoming part of the gang of regular comics. Meanwhile, his relationship with Tess seems to change with every meeting.

    As you can tell from this brief summary, there isn’t much to the plot of the film, but every conversation between Alex and Tess and every time we see Alex doing stand-up, offers real insight into the realities of modern marriage, beyond the melodrama Hollywood films usually dish out.

    While it’s no surprise that Dern delivers a thoughtful, complex performance as Tess; she’s been doing it consistently since she was a teenager, but Arnett was a revelation to me. Best known for his role in the long-running series “Arrested Development,” which I’ve never seen, Arnett’s film work is 90 percent as a voice actor in animation, including as Batman in the “Lego” movies.

     Under Cooper’s direction, with a script by Cooper, Arnett and Mark Chappell, based on British comedian John Bishop’s life, the actor makes the journey from accidental performer to featured comedian completely believable, even as he struggles to figure out his life.

    The supporting cast is just as good: Cooper as his best friend, a grass-smoking bit actor who gives bad advice; Andra Day as Cooper’s forgiving wife; the ultimate wise old man Ciaran Hinds as Arnett’s father and Christine Ebersole, who I had no idea was old enough to play grandmother roles, as his mother.

     Lending to the authenticity, the film features a bunch of actual New York City comedians, including Sam Jay, Erin Jackson, Greer Barnes and the legendary Dave Attell.

  

MARTY SUPREME (2025)

     There’s a good movie to be made about the life of Marty Reisman, a world- famous ping pong champ of the 1950s, but “Marty Supreme” isn’t it.

     Josh Safdie’s film is a collection of unpleasant adventures that illustrate a year or so in the life of a self-centered, deceitful, unsympathetic young man.

      Marty (a kinetic Timothée Chalamet) works in his uncle’s shoe store but his laser focus is on getting the money to attend a table tennis competition in London. When his uncle refuses him, Marty steals from the business. Then, while supposedly concentrating on his sport at the tournament, Marty takes a penthouse suite at the Ritz (billing it all to the tennis table association) and seduces a retired silent film star (Gwyneth Paltrow).

      Yes, there are some specular ping pong matches, but the film has little interest in how Marty earned his reputation in the sport or how successful he’s been in the past. For much of the picture, he’s shown doing terrible things to everyone he meets in hopes of cashing in.

      In two episodes, neither having much to do with anything, a mobster (Abel Ferrara) engages in a bloody shoot-out to retrieve his dog and Marty sets fire to a bunch of local ping pong players he just hustled. Every sequence in the film seems to be an outtake from another movie. Not to pile on, but Safdie’s overuse of extreme closeups and a loud, off-putting score by Daniel Lopatin told me that the director didn’t trust his story or dialogue.

      Chalamet does his best with this unlikeable character but the story never allowed me to understand his lack of a moral center. He’ll probably take home the best actor Oscar but I’m not sure why. I have nothing against movie anti-heroes (see “The Godfather,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Joker” and the entire filmography of Martin Scorsese) but Marty comes off as charmless, irritating and never pays for his bad behavior.

     To me, the best performances in the film are delivered by Ferrara, the veteran director of violent cult films including “King of New York” (1990) and “Bad Lieutenant” (1992), as a bad guy Marty tries to rip off, and Odessa A’zion as Marty’s cousin who, for no visible reason, loves him.

     Also in the cast is Fran Drescher, as Marty’s mother, magician Penn Jillette, former NBA star George Gervin and Kevin O’Leary from the TV show “Shark Tanks.” Unfortunately, O’ Leary plays a major role as Paltrow’s husband who, for a time, takes a liking to Marty. His acting is what you’d expect from a reality TV performer. (I guess Mark Cuban wasn’t available.)

     A lighter touch by director Safdie (who made “Uncut Gems” with brother Benny) and co-writer Ronald Bronstein might have made for a very entertaining film, in the vein of “Catch Me If You Can” or “Paper Moon,” but this heavy-handed, frenetic tale of unbridled ambition left me as cold as Marty’s heart.    

              

DIE MY LOVE (2025) and IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (2025)

     Two of the year’s best performances are in films that test one’s tolerance for the depiction of extreme human emotions. Yet considering that a majority of American movies involve worlds of sci-fi and fantasy—at least it seems that way—I shouldn’t complain about even the most unwatchable characters who are actual earthlings.

      In “Die My Love,” Jennifer Lawrence, among the most accomplished actresses of her generation, delivers a scorching performance as Grace, a struggling writer who moves with boyfriend Jackson (a properly confused Robert Pattinson) to his Montana hometown, near his parents, while expecting their first child.

     After the birth, Grace slips into the worst case of postpartum depression you’ve ever seen, in part because Jackson is away at work or, she suspects, having an affair. She continues to spiral, growing more self-destructive and argumentative as the film, written and directed by Lynne Ramsay (“Morvern Callar”), grows more disjointed, reflecting her state of mind while taxing the audience’s. I was lost more than once during the movie but Lawrence’s intense, painful acting carries one through.

     The first-rate supporting cast aids greatly in holding the plot together. Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte play Grace’s in-laws and LaKeith Stanfield has a small role as a mysterious neighbor.

      In contrast, Rose Byrne’s Oscar-nominated performance as a distressed mother cannot save “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” I never was quite sure if I should pity Byrne’s Linda, an irritating, foolish woman who makes one bad decision after another or sympathize with her burden of dealing with a young child with a serious illness. No matter how you react, the movie is nearly unwatchable.

    It’s almost a shock when you first realize that Linda is a therapist—the idea of her guiding others through troubles is incomprehensible. Just as bad is her fellow therapist (who also treats her) played stiffly by Conan O’Brien. Not sure why O’Brien was cast, but he is clearly no actor.

      One of the oddest choices director Mary Bronstein makes is not showing the child. You hear her and watch as Linda interacts with her, but the camera never reveals the girl’s face. If there was a point, I missed it.

     The plot drifts along after a pipe break in Linda’s house creates a huge hole in the ceiling, forcing her and the child to live in a hotel (the father is away on a work trip). At the hotel she meets a young man (rapper A$AP Rocky) who she smokes pot with, developing an odd love/hate relationship.

      Byne creates a chaotic personality who has no clue as to how to calmly deal with her life. I never doubted the truth of the situation, but that didn’t make it a tale worth watching. 

  

FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER (2025)

     Writer-director Jim Jarmusch is an acquired taste. His quirky characters, slow pacing and often absurd dialogue lives in its own world, far from mainstream or even most independent movies. I can’t say I’ve liked even the majority of his films, but since his breakthrough 1984 feature “Stranger Than Paradise,” he’s brought a distinctive, brutally honest point of view rarely investigated by American films.

      His latest plays out like a carefully constructed short story collection: three stories of families linked only by the idea of how children and parents can grow distant, strangers to one another.

      In the first episode, Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik play brother and sister enroute to visit their hermit-like father (longtime Jarmusch compadre Tom Waits, reason enough to see the film). During the visit, all three struggle to maintain a conversation and it becomes clear to the viewer than the father is lying to his children about his life.

      The second section moves us to London, where a haughty novelist (the always regal Charlotte Rampling) hosts an annual tea for her very different daughters: the rebellious younger one Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and the stiff, uncomfortable Timothea (Cate Blanchett). The gathering isn’t much more joyous than the previous story; seemingly everyone is hiding their lives from one another.

     The last part offers the most upbeat look at family relations, but sadly the twin sister and brother (Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat) are brough together by the recent death of their parents. They seem too normal, too adjusted to be in a Jarmusch film, but I guess he wanted to end on a positive note. 

      While this doesn’t rank with the director’s best works---“Stranger Than Paradise,” “Down by Law,” “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai,” and “Paterson”—it’s an insightful, if offhanded, tale of how many find the simple act of communicating so difficult.

  

SORRY, BABY (2025)

    I recognize that I am out of step with the critical consensus that “independent” movies—even if no one can properly define indie films—represent the best in cinema as we enter the second quarter of the century. Most of them bore the hell out of me, including last year’s best picture winner, “Anora.”

     But “Sorry, Baby,” primarily due to impressive talent of writer-director-star Eva Victor, is the exception to the rule.

       The film has all the hallmarks of a typical indie: an unhappy, traumatized 20something seeking the meaning in life; shifting timeframe; long self-indulgent conversations; characters and actors representing all strata of society; and the lack of typical movie dramatics. But Victor, making her feature directing debut, manages to deal with issues while giving her characters something interesting to say.

    She plays Agnes, a literature teacher at a small New England college, who continues to struggle with a sexual assault that took place at the school while she was a student there. Much of the first act focuses on a visit by her friend Lydie (Naomi Ackie), who is having a baby with her partner, and her efforts to cheer-up Agnes. The film then goes back in time to vaguely explain what happen between her and her former doctorate adviser.

     Late in the film, the always welcomed John Carroll Lynch shows up as a restaurant owner who helps Agnes calm down after a confusing confrontation with a colleague.

    A struggling actor since 2014, Victor scored a Golden Globe nomination for her performance in “Sorry, Baby” and has received numerous “best first feature” from a number of critic groups.   

THE RING (1952)

      Most of the B-movies I watch offer little more than minor variations on the murder-mystery formula as performed by a cast of no-name actors. But every so often, in my nightly searches on YouTube, I discover a long-forgotten gem that has something more substantial to offer.

      Set in a mid-century Mexican neighborhood of Los Angeles, “The Ring” tells the story of a 20something son who attempts to help his family out of their financial struggles by becoming a prize fighter. But more than that, the picture exposes the bigotry, both subtle and blatant, that Latinos faced daily in L.A.

    Tommy (Lalo Rios) is recruited by boxing manager Pete (Gerald Mohr) when he’s spotted punching a couple of men after he and his date (played by 21-year-old Rita Moreno) are insulted in a tavern. This incident happens the same day Tommy’s father (Martin Garralaga) turns down a job on Olvera Street, the original site of the Mexican settlement of Los Angeles, to pose as a “lazy Mexican” for white tourists. Cinematographer Russell Harlan, who went on to collect six Oscar nominations including for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” shoots in various neighborhoods of the city, as it becomes almost another character in the movie.

     I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a film, certainly not one from the 1950s, that so directly highlights the racism toward Spanish speakers. There’s a scene later in the film where Tommy and his friends go to a diner in Beverly Hills, spurring the manager to immediate call the police.

     But when the cop recognizes Tommy from one of his bouts, he demands the waitress serve the boys and stays around to make sure they are properly treated. Even a bit of fame changes everything; without the boxer’s presence it would have been a different story.

     The boxing scenes are well done and brutal, especially when Tommy defies his manager, letting his early success go to his head. His bout with Art Aragon (the one-time popular L.A. fighter plays himself) gives him a taste of the sport’s reality.

     Rios later had small roles in “Touch of Evil” (1958) and “The Magnificent Seven” (1960), but spent most of his career in episodical television. 

     Director Kurt Neumann, a genre filmmaker whose most successful picture was “The Fly” (1958) with Vincent Price, and novelist and screenwriter Irving Shulman (“Rebel Without a Cause”), working for the King Brothers, famous B-movie producers of the era, all deserve acclaim for making a movie about an issue few in the 1950s wanted to hear about.   

     Sadly, the racist attitudes didn’t change much over the next 25 years and few Latinos were the focus of Hollywood movies, adding to the importance of “The Ring.”

THE ALTO KNIGHTS (2025)

      For no good reason, pure ego maybe, Robert De Niro plays both Frank Costello and Vito Genovese, two aging mob bosses making a play for power in the 1950s. Why anyone though this was a good idea—no makeup can turn De Niro into two different men, is beyond me.

     Plodding direction by long-time De Niro collaborator Barry Levinson (“Wag the Dog,” “Wizard of Lies”) and an under-developed script by Nicholas Pileggi (“Goodfellas,” “Casino”) doesn’t help matters, especially when you are presenting a story well known to anyone familiar with mid-century Mafia power struggles.

      The two criminals, who both started as bootleggers under legendary mobster Lucky Luciano, went on to become powerful figures in the crime families in the 1930s through the ‘50s.

     Genovese, who fled to Fascist Italy to avoid murder charges during the war years, returned to New York expecting to hold power over his family. But Costello, who had grown more dominate in the Cosa Nostra since Genovese’s exile, is determined to keep his old friend at bay. The complicated struggle for control is never made clear in the film, but it was short-lived as Vito was sent to prison in 1959 on drug charges and died there.

    Not only is De Niro too old for these roles—both men where in their 50s during the film’s main timeframe, but he wears so much plastic prosthetics that it’s distracting. Why try to make this world-famous actor look like two guys that 99 percent of the audience has never seen? I guess De Niro put his trust in Levinson, but this is the kind of picture I’d expect to see Eric Roberts or Steven Seagal star in.

    The supporting cast doesn’t leave much of an impression other than Debra Messing as Costello’s long-suffering wife. Oddly, Carlo Gambino (James Ciccone), who, at the time, was the most powerful figure in organized crime, crowned by Genovese, is reduced to a minor character in “Alto Knights.”

     A more interesting mob story is the refusal of J. Edgar Hoover, the all-powerful FBI director, to acknowledge even the existence of the Mafia for decades, giving them free range to run unions, take a cut from most of American commerce, organize the illegal drug trade and murder at will.

        

PHOTOS:

 Jessie Buckley at the Globe Theatre in “Hamnet.”  (Focus Features)

 Will Arnett on stage in “Is This Thing On?”  (Searchlight Pictures)

 Mayim Bialik, Tom Waits and Adam Driver in “Father Mother Sister Brother.”  (MUBI)

Rita Moreno and Lalo Rios in "The Ring."  (United Artists)

 Robert De Niro times two in “The Alto Knights.” (Warner Bros.)