Author: Justin Humphreys

Director Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers is a love letter to 1970s cinema. An avowed cinephile, Payne affectionately evokes the era’s character-driven and frequently dark films with this wry comedy-drama. Payne’s Sideways’ star Paul Giamatti delivers a rich, funny performance in the lead, helping The Holdovers stand out as one of 2023’s best American movies.

Set in 1970 in an isolated Massachusetts boarding school, the film focuses on curmudgeonly teacher Paul Hunham (Giamatti), who must spend the duration of the Christmas holidays minding five students who are unable to return home. Hunham, a former student himself, has spent most of his life sourly entrenched on the school’s campus. Four of the kids manage to get out, leaving Hunham alone with his witty, troubled student Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and cafeteria chief Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). Each of these three disparate people carries their own burden of grief and confusion, and over the holiday season, they gradually bond and enliven their peculiar circumstances.

Screenwriter David Hemingson has created a highly literate script that is by turns funny, touching, nasty, and sweet, without getting treacly. Its humor is akin to Michael Ritchie’s comedies like Smile and The Bad News Bears. The sharp dialogue is peppered with far-ranging cultural references—from the Punic Wars to Artie Shaw—and the filmmakers trust the audience to catch them all. This respect for the viewer’s intelligence makes the movie a welcome change from Hollywood’s tendency to aim for the lowest common denominator.

The Holdovers has been criticized for not delving deeper into its period’s volatile cultural landscape. That the film doesn’t fall into the worn-out clichés usually trotted out in such films—protests, hippies vs. cops, etc.—is a relief. Payne’s focus is on his characters, although there are specific jabs at the Vietnam War’s destructive misguidedness. Also to the film’s credit, Payne deftly manages to simultaneously convey the warmest and the most depressing sides of Christmas.

Without revealing some of The Holdovers’ many intriguing surprises, it’s a story told on a small but intensely detailed canvas that explores the tribulations of teenage life, middle age, the spoiled rich, and the struggling working class. But it’s also about the continuity of life and surviving and thriving in the face of tragedy.

From Giamatti down to the smallest walk-on parts, the cast is well chosen and in excellent form. Giamatti clearly savors playing another of the fussy, fusty oddball roles he excels at, and he’s a joy to watch. First-timer Sessa registers very well as the anxious, wound-up Tully. Randolph’s deadpan reactions to her nerve-wracking companions are wonderful, as are her dynamic moments in emotionally charged scenes.

Working on a modest budget, The Holdovers’ exceptional creative team convincingly recreates vintage New England without belaboring the period details. It looks, feels, and practically smells like 1970, from the ugly furniture, to pipe-smoking in a movie theater, to the W. C. Fields poster on a dorm room wall. Production designer Ryan Warren Smith and costume designer Wendy Chuck have done especially remarkable work.

The Holdovers excels as an ode to ’70s films in countless ways, and perhaps most strongly in its merciful lack of pat, easy answers. It offers the kind of rewarding and emotionally jagged story that has all but vanished from the movies, and it comes highly recommended.

The Holdovers

R, 206 minutes | Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield Cinema, Violet Crown Cinema

Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is nearly three and a half hours long, but its length just means the great filmmaker did justice to this sweeping, fascinating story. Flower Moon moves like a long fuse tensely burning down to an inevitable explosion. It’s a hypnotic, gorgeous, grand work and Scorsese’s best in years.

Based on David Grann’s non-fiction book, the movie documents a series of murders and other crimes committed against the Osage Nation a century ago. Fresh from World War I, the dull-witted Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) goes to work for his powerful uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), in Oklahoma’s Osage Territory. The Osage Tribe is wealthy from the oil-rich land, but the locals—especially the glad-handing sociopath Hale—swindle them at every opportunity. 

Hale’s vile schemes extend to coaxing his nephew into marrying an Osage woman, Mollie (Lily Gladstone), with the intention of inheriting a claim on her family’s wealth. As mysterious deaths build up, Mollie complains to the federal government, who make this the first major case for their budding Bureau of Investigation.

Flower Moon pursues elements that run throughout Scorsese’s oeuvre: a self-destructive, criminal protagonist; religion; terminally fractured romances; and organized crime. At 80, Scorsese is as cinematically gifted as ever, but he’s more contemplative now. This is an intense and enormously visually inventive film, but not as feverishly so as his youthful works like Taxi Driver or Raging Bull.

Part of Flower Moon’s overall effectiveness derives from how subtly Scorsese documents insidious, cold-hearted evil. He lets hellish events unfold without bludgeoning the audience with self-righteous lectures. For instance, the period’s casual, ingrained racism is just another facet of the terrifying landscape, like when the Ku Klux Klan march behind the Osage Nation in a local parade. Underlying the vicious crimes being perpetrated onscreen is a profound sympathy for the tribe’s violated humanity.

The great production designer Jack Fisk does a stellar job of recreating this bygone world, packing every shot densely with rich period details. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto’s vast canvas practically demands that Flower Moon be seen on the big screen. Costume designer Jacqueline West’s contributions are also superb.

As with all Scorsese pictures, music is integral. This was the final film score by his longtime friend and collaborator Robbie Robertson, who created a tense, insistent, often low-key score that adds immeasurably to the film’s unsettling tone.

DiCaprio resorts to a lot of brow-knitting and jaw-clenching. De Niro is decent, but is most effective in his silent moments, and both he and DiCaprio handle their regional accents unsurely. Gladstone’s fine, restrained performance as Molly seems doubly strong alongside DiCaprio’s excesses. Jesse Plemons is first-rate and natural as Federal Agent Tom White. The supporting cast is fantastic overall, including venerable actors like Barry Corbin and John Lithgow. Scorsese loves distinctive faces and Flower Moon is full of them, devoid of slick, Hollywood prettiness. 

There is much more that could be said about Flower Moon, but in a nutshell, it is likely the best American film of 2023—far superior to the overrated Oppenheimer. It’s a disturbing, artistically rewarding journey through an ugly chapter in American history that’s worth seeing multiple times.

Killers of the Flower Moon

R, 206 minutes | Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield Cinema, Violet Crown Cinema

Horror specialist Ben Wheatley’s Meg 2: The Trench is essentially a rehash of the giant monster shenanigans in 2018’s The Meg. It is exactly what its trailer leads you to expect: The prehistoric megalodon shark is back—along with its kinfolk—and they wreak havoc and devour a lot of people. It’s the definition of a big, dumb summer popcorn movie.

Jason Statham returns as rescue diver Jonas (get it?), now working as a “green James Bond,” who exposes environmental criminals at sea. Working with entrepreneur Jiuming (Wu Jing), Jonas joins a team headed into the titular Mariana Trench, where they discover not only enormous Meg sharks and other prehistoric monsters, but an illicit mining operation. When an explosion damages their submersibles, they must don high-tech diving suits and wind their way through shark-infested waters to the mining facility. From there, double-crosses, kung fu fights, and giant creature attacks steadily ensue, culminating in gargantuan sharks chowing down at a comically cheerful island resort.

There is nothing new here. Meg 2 is a mélange of Jaws, The Abyss, Jurassic Park, Alien, and The Land That Time Forgot, and isn’t remotely as good as any of them. Its tone is somewhere between a milder Chuck Norris actioner and a Japanese kaiju movie. It could pass for a live-action version of a 1980s action figure tie-in cartoon series that never existed. Wheatley directs Meg 2 as it was intended to be: As smoothly, cleanly manufactured as a Hostess Twinkie and about as nourishing. But Twinkies have their place and, for what it is, Meg 2 is innocuous enough.

It’s hard to actively praise a hollow, impersonal movie like this. The characters are two-dimensional and the dialogue is mostly at a coloring-book level. There are a few striking moments, and some genuinely funny bits, mostly involving comic relief technician D.J. (Page Kennedy). The movie’s real stars are its cast of CG creatures: the Megs, “Snapper” lizards, man-eating eels, and a giant squid. These hungry beasts and some intriguing bioluminescent deep-sea plants steal the show, along with Pippin the dog, returning from the first Meg.

Decades ago, ludicrous movies like this would have been made by the Shaw Brothers or Toho at a tiny fraction of Meg 2’s budget, and would have far excelled it in both silliness and charm. And, more importantly, they would lack self-awareness. Meg 2 has a dull, assembly-line feeling, devoid of spontaneity, because every frame of it has been calculated to maximize profits and minimize the filmmaker’s individuality. It’s a cynical approach to moviemaking, and a major reason why so many current movies are homogeneous and predictable.

For viewers familiar with Wheatley’s earlier work, Meg 2 is considerably less graphic than his Kill List and A Field in England. The accent here is on silly, somewhat gruesome thrills, not skin-crawling viciousness. The fact that it is so CG-driven also muffles most scares.

If viewers want simple-minded, passable summer fare, they won’t be disappointed by Meg 2. But there are plenty of man-eating fish and prehistoric monster movies that far outclass this one. Meg 2 may be the shallowest movie ever made about the planet’s lowest depths.

Meg 2: The Trench

PG-13, 116 minutes

Alamo Cinema Drafthouse, Regal Stonefield, Violet Crown Cinema

Based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus, writer/director Christopher Nolan’s biopic Oppenheimer follows physicist Robert Oppenheimer as he develops and detonates the first atomic bomb, then spends his life regretting it. The subject is fascinating, but, despite Nolan’s visual razzle-dazzle, the film only works sporadically.

The movie occurs mainly in flashbacks: Oppenheimer’s unorthodox theoretical physics studies lead the Army to choose him to design a supremely powerful bomb before the Nazis can. A post-World War II wraparound story woven throughout the film finds Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) being professionally undone by his former boss, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.). 

Supervised by General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Oppenheimer builds a small scientific community in Los Alamos, Mexico, and races to finish the “gadget,” as he calls it. Meanwhile, his intimate relationships with his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt), and his occasional mistress, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), remain turbulent.

Murphy almost supernaturally resembles Oppenheimer, and captures his haunted look and physicality as well as any actor probably can. Damon shines as the hard-nosed Strauss. But Downey’s performance is just a variation on the same uptight jerk he’s played countless times before.

Most of the cast’s recreations of historical figures are fine, particularly Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, and James Remar as Harry Stimson. Gary Oldman is outstanding in his single scene as Harry S. Truman, where the president shifts from being a backslapping good old boy into nearly demonic nastiness. 

Nolan’s visual storytelling is at its tightest, most focused, and least talky during the construction and testing of the bomb at the Trinity Site. But the film is definitely a mixed bag. Nolan’s script is dialogue heavy, but his tin ear for 1940s speech shows virtually no feel for the era’s phrasing or slang. The anachronistic soundtrack also diminishes the overall period flavor.

But Nolan’s biggest mistake is dancing around the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. The audience sees Oppenheimer’s guilt and horror at his complicity in the destruction, but no images of the leveled cities and the bombs’ victims. The unspeakable should be spoken—and seen—here, not hinted at.

With nuclear saber-rattling still a very current concern, viewers should be reminded of how devastating these weapons are, even the smallest, earliest ones. Nolan attempts to convey the bomb’s hellish power in a lame vision Oppenheimer has of an atomic attack. Those criticisms aside, the film’s final sequence has an intense potency that makes up for what the preceding scenes lack.

Technically the production design and costumes are very good. The variable cinematography includes some visually stunning sequences, particularly several key aerial shots. But Nolan’s occasional use of a jiggling, handheld camera for the gigantic 70mm IMAX screen was a colossal creative error, and enough to induce seasickness. Subjective scenes of Oppenheimer’s imagination working through particle physics are interesting, but not spectacular.

Overall, Oppenheimer is worthwhile, but it’s unnecessarily flashy and could have benefited from a more intimate approach. The Oppenheimer documentary The Day After Trinity is much better, partly because of its straightforwardness. Oppenheimer is a respectable effort at telling this earth-shaking story, but, despite all its hype, it isn’t the multi-megaton cinematic explosion it’s marketed as.

Oppenheimer

R, 180 minutes

Alamo Cinema Drafthouse
Regal Stonefield

Director Lesley Chilcott’s three-part Netflix series Arnold has a subject so famous and ubiquitous that a first name is all the title requires. Arnold Schwarzenegger has lived an epic life, carving out his mythic existence with success in multiple arenas. In this series his biography is presented strictly by-the-numbers in a creatively unambitious documentary about this epically ambitious man.

Schwarzenegger, 75, recounts his life on camera, with each episode spotlighting a specific segment of his career: “Athlete,” “Actor,” and “American.” Interspersed with interviews with his co-workers and friends, including James Cameron and Danny DeVito, the Schwarzenegger-sanctioned doc is light on controversy, and annoyingly stagey unnecessary reenactments of incidents from his life occasionally appear.

Episode one, “Athlete,” establishes that every stage of Schwarzenegger’s life was marked by a superhuman drive to be number one. He grew up in the tiny Austrian village of Thal with a father who was an abusive World War II vet on the German side—a martinet who instilled in Arnold and his brother, Meinhard, a fiercely competitive urge. While other Austrians focused on soccer or skiing, the adolescent Arnold became fascinated by bodybuilding after seeing muscleman Reg Park in a Hercules movie. 

The rest is history. Schwarzenegger won the Mr. Universe competition by age 20, before he reached the United States. And when he did arrive in the States, he lived the supreme Horatio Alger success story: a muscle-bound kid with a heavy accent and an unpronounceable name taking America by storm.

Nicknamed The Austrian Oak, Schwarzenegger became a poster boy for muscle training with the help of weightlifting legend Joe Weider, winning title after title. After a decade of competing, it became “boring,” Schwarzenegger explains, and he chose to “leave it a winner.” But not before he filmed the 1977 hit docudrama Pumping Iron, which widely popularized massive delts and pecs throughout America.

In “Actor,” Schwarzenegger discusses his movie career, and from here on, the material becomes overly familiar. Star-making vehicles like Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator made him a box-office draw as one of the world’s biggest action stars. One of Arnold’s most amusing vignettes is an interview with Sylvester Stallone describing his relentless competition with Schwarzenegger in the ’80s, each of them vying for the biggest guns and most kills on screen. This echoes a telling phrase Schwarzenegger uses to describe what he loves about America’s hyper-ambitious culture: “Too big is not enough!”

Episode three covers Schwarzenegger’s marriage to Maria Shriver, a Kennedy, and his entrance into politics. After serving two terms as governor of California, Arnie’s marriage collapsed when it was revealed that he had fathered a child with the famous couple’s housekeeper. This, and some admissions of sexual harassment in his youth, are virtually the only aspersions allowed to be cast on his character throughout the series.

Therein lies the documentary’s major flaw: Arnold is essentially a promotional video for its subject, who is presented as godlike. Admittedly, Schwarzenegger’s extraordinary life makes most of it engaging, but it’s too worshipful. The bigger problem is that this is unexceptional, and low on insight or enlightening new information about the “Governator.” It’s basically fun, but for a documentary about Olympian bodies, its storytelling muscles lack tone.

Arnold

NR, three episodes
Streaming (Netflix)