Monthly Archives: October 2026

Reel Views, Review

You Can See Everything

It’s a standoff. 2 days before the start of her 11-year prison sentence, disgraced tech CEO Elizabeth Holmes locks eyes with comedian Nathan Fielder inside a rental house on the San Diego coast. “You’re being real right now?” he asks, and with a frozen smile and slightly cocked head, she replies, “I’m always being real.” In the teaser trailer for the mesmerizing and singular documentary You Can See Everything, which was kept under wraps until that minute-long clip debuted just 6 weeks ago, the intense close-ups of this interaction are resolved by a wider two shot revealing their faces are about a foot away from one another. We also get an answer as to why Holmes’ body seemed to be bobbing unnaturally in the previous frames: she’s been rocking her baby in a swing with an outstretched foot during this conversation. Things aren’t always what they seem.

Screened as a surprise addition to the Telluride Film Festival last month, You Can See Everything most closely resembles a magic trick in a world where magic is in depressingly short supply. It wouldn’t be Fielder’s first brush with wizardry. An episode of his satirical docu-reality series Nathan For You hinged on his ability to pick a handcuff lock in under 90 seconds to avert a fate “truly worse than death”. Last year’s season finale of his HBO show The Rehearsal revealed that he had been training for 2 years to obtain his commercial pilot’s license so he could fly a cabin of actors across the California-Nevada border. In addition to its short turnaround time from announcement to release, this almost 3-hour long documentary contains bombshells that may have already been spoiled for you following its impressive box office showing. I don’t plan on uncovering the film’s more surprising revelations here.

Lance Oppenheim, whose similarly buzzed-about first narrative feature Primetime was released just last month, co-directs with Fielder. The two, along with a limited camera crew, were invited in the spring of 2023 by Holmes and her partner Billy Evans to document their lives before the former CEO of Theranos heads to jail for defrauding investors. Though Oppenheim has directed several documentaries that were well-received in the critic’s community, he’s not the first name that might pop into your head when selecting someone to cover your exclusive pre-prison interview, and Nathan Fielder, even less so. Holmes and Evans say they saw a brief clip of him interacting with a convenience store clerk they thought was humorous and thought he’d do a good job. Are they lying? After he moves in with them, Fielder even points out the irony to them that his show Nathan For You was, in essence, about business scams. Holmes confesses she didn’t consider the correlation to her defunct tech company.

If the see saw of You Can See Everything is between authenticity and deception, then the fulcrum is the foundation of performance. Everyone inside of that beach house — probably even the scantily-seen camera crew — is performing for one another. It doesn’t mean they’re always being deceitful but it certainly doesn’t mean they’re being forthcoming all the time either. Though Holmes was found guilty by a group of her peers, she professes her innocence steadfastly and offers to show the crew the components behind the infamous blood-testing black box that led to Theranos’ demise. Elizabeth, perhaps subconsciously, performs her pitch to them, using hyper-specific language tailored to skirt fraud claims. She’s repeated the prospects of the technology that was proven not to work so many times, even she believes it. When Fielder points out the semantics in her proposal that misled investors, his use of a famous comedy routine to illustrate his point results in one of the year’s most captivating scenes.

Going into You Can See Everything, one could assume the convicted fraudster would be the main person “performing” for the camera but across the robust runtime, Oppenheim, and even Fielder, himself broach the idea that she may not the only one playing to camera. Billy has been with Elizabeth for 6 years at this point, enough to be a “true believer” in her deception, to the extent that he’s even mirrored the appearance of her hypnotic eyes. But does he really believe in Holmes or is he using her to further a new tech grift of his own? Fielder knows he’s literally face-to-face with an inscrutable figure, a dream subject for an exposé. Is he nodding politely to get Holmes to keep talking or is he actually buying into her lies? Just as waves lap the shore, the narrative current of this fascinating, first-rate doc perpetually makes and unmakes our perceptions of reality.

Score – 4.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Clayface, starring Tom Rhys Harries and Naomi Ackie, reimagines the DC Comics villain as a rising movie star who volunteers as a test subject to restore his original face after having been brutally disfigured but experiences a series of horrifying side effects.
Wildwood, starring Carey Mulligan and Mahershala Ali, is a stop-motion fantasy tale about a teenager who must find the courage to rescue her abducted infant brother from a hidden magical forest near their home in the Pacific Northwest.
Klara And The Sun, starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams, takes place in a dystopian future where technological advances in genetic engineering have divided humans into strict social classes, where an obsolete companion android tries to bond with a sick girl for whom she was purchased.

Column, Midwest Film Journal

No Sleep October: The Lost Boys

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

Sweaty shirtless saxophone shredding. Of all the images from Joel Schumacher’s 1987 campy vamp romp The Lost Boys, the shots of muscular oiled-up Tim Cappello, humping the air while blowing the riff for “I Still Believe”, have transcended their origin and exist now in the upper echelon of GIFdom. The beach concert cameo from the ponytailed performer, who had appearances in the music videos for both of Tina Turner’s cuts from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome two years prior, obviously doesn’t contribute to the movie’s plot but it comes close to summing up its setting and spirit. Steeped in the carefree decadence of 1980s coastal California, the film’s primary backdrop of the Santa Cruz Boardwalk perfectly encapsulates the up-all-night defiance and eternally youthful energy emanating from the bell of its horn.

Standing in for Santa Cruz throughout The Lost Boys is the fictitious town of Santa Carla, where the recently divorced Lucy Emerson (Dianne Wiest) relocates with her sons Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim). The older Michael immediately becomes smitten with Star (Jami Gertz), even though she’s embedded in a rough crowd of biker boys who aren’t allowed on the boardwalk. The gang is led by the Billy Idol-looking David (Kiefer Sutherland), who notes Michael’s attraction to Star and takes the “keep your friends close and your enemies closer” approach with the new kid in town. After pressure from David and his crew, Michael drinks from a bottle filled with blood and learns of their secret the hard way: they’re all vampires, and now, he is too.

At the same time, Sam garners interest from brothers Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan Frog (Jamison Newlander), thanks to Sam’s expertise in comic book lore. He thinks they’ve read one issue too many when they intimate that Santa Carla is secretly overrun with vampires but after Sam notices several alarming changes in Michael, he takes the claims of the Frog Brothers more seriously. The three set out to eliminate the head vampire that turned all of the teens in town, hoping that cutting the head off the proverbial snake will free them from their vampirism. All the while, they’re fending off another threat in the form of Max (Edward Herrmann), Lucy’s boss at the local video store who sure seems like he’s aiming to be Michael and Sam’s new stepdad.

Richard Donner, who was originally slated to direct The Lost Boys before he was offered Lethal Weapon, stayed on the film in an executive producer role and his influence is felt most in the Amblinesque plotline with Sam and the Frog boys. Their ragtag mission to take out the vampire trash is like a horror-tinged riff on what happened further up the coast in the Goon Docks in 1985’s Donner-directed The Goonies, which also starred Corey Feldman. He was a bit of a ubiquitous figure the entire decade, so it’s perhaps inevitable that this movie has ties to 1986’s Stand By Me, which also features Kiefer Sutherland as a menacing gang leader and a pivotal scene set on train tracks. The railway sequence in Schumacher’s film is significant enough that it was used as the artwork for the 35th anniversary 4K release in 2022, replacing the rebellious floating head poster.

You don’t have to look hard to find homoerotic subtext in a Joel Schumacher movie and The Lost Boys is no exception. David is initially introduced as a romantic competitor to Michael, calling Star over to his motorcycle after Michael spends some time with her on the boardwalk. Challenging Michael to a bike race to Hudson’s Bluff, David leads the way through increasingly foggy surroundings until Michael catches up with him and Star on their bike. With editor Robert Brown, Schumacher cuts between Michael gripping the phallic throttle and brow-drenched close-ups of him and David gyrating over the bumpy terrain. As they make their way into the vampiric lair, there’s an element of seduction in the way David outlines their hedonistic way of life before offering Michael that fateful bottle. Their cave even sports that legendarily, devil-may-care photo of Jim Morrison, paralleled by the “People Are Strange” cover Echo & The Bunnymen contribute to the soundtrack.

Fog continues to play a crucial role in the scenes that outline Michael’s initiation into the bad boy bunch. Walking down a shrouded railway bridge, the gang members drop one by one to hang off the track bars below. “Come with us, Michael,” David whistles before leaping down and leaving Michael above the four of them with a decision to join or not. As he tentatively crawls down, their feet dangle over dense fog while a train passes furiously above them. David bellows, “You are one of us, Michael!” as he lets go after the rest of his rapscallions have done the same. Michael dangles there, hanging on to the conventions of heteronormativity and tempted to join the boys in their mysterious but alluring lifestyle. You can actually hear David flirtatiously chuckle the moment before Michael’s fingers relent and he joins them in the misty unknown below. It’s no accident the next cross dissolve is to Michael crashing onto his bed at home, dirty and spent after a long night.

If it seems like I’ve written Michael’s name quite a few times in this piece, it’s nothing compared to the amount of times characters in The Lost Boys utter the main character’s name. There are no fewer than 100 mentions of “Michael” and its derivations (Mike, Mikey, et al.) out of the mouths of the ensemble cast through the 97-minute runtime; I’m not great at math but that’s an average of more than 1 every minute. It’s not clear to me exactly why his name pops up so frequently in the dialogue but it could point to a larger 1980s horror trope, as Siskel & Ebert pointed out in their 1988 review of Poltergeist III. Fortunately, the script by the “J” trio of Janice Fischer, James Jeremias and Jeffrey Boam does have more than “Michael” on its mind and peppers in some fun one-liners to break up the brooding teen melodrama. They even save the best for last, as the film’s fun final line is delivered with memorable cantankerousness by the oddball grandpa character, played by Barnard Hughes.

Reel Views, Review

Sense And Sensibility

Even though more than 30 years have passed since its release, Ang Lee’s Sense And Sensibility isn’t the kind of literary adaptation I would be particularly keen on trying to update. Bolstered by an incredible ensemble cast, it’s an endlessly enchanting and rapturous rendering that remains one of the finest cinematic interpretations of Jane Austen’s work. Nonetheless, director Georgia Oakley and screenwriter Diana Reid have crafted their own version of the classic novel that distinguishes itself enough tonally from other takes. It’s a more urgent and less stately production, favoring muted colors and an omnipresent music score over the bright and whimsical Austen screen dramatizations of the mid-90s. Arriving early in this year’s award season, this Sense And Sensibility finds Focus Features attempting to recreate the success they had with the somber Hamnet last year.

Set in England during the early 19th century, the story opens with news of Henry Dashwood’s death, leaving Mrs. Dashwood (Caitríona Balfe) with their three daughters Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones), Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles), and Margaret (Bodhi Rae Breathnach). Forced to downsize to a country cottage and faced with the prospect of poverty, the eldest daughters set out to find suitors who will improve their situation. Soon after, Elinor meets the dashing and debonair Edward Ferrars (George MacKay), quickly falls for him and patiently waits for him to ask for her hand in marriage. Marianne, the more impulsive and idealistic of the sisters, is set up with reserved and reticent family friend Colonel Brandon (Herbert Nordrum) but is drawn to the flighty and fanciful John Willoughby (Frank Dillane) instead.

In addition to the inclusion of the Norwegian Nordrum in an ensemble traditionally comprised of English performers, Sense And Sensibility possesses a few other inspired casting choices that help it stand out. The always magnificent Fiona Shaw is a hoot as the gabby and gregarious Mrs. Jennings, who invites the Dashwoods to a consequential trip to bustling London. Conversely, Stacy Martin is perfectly prickly as Edward’s disapproving sister, the closest thing this tale has to a proper antagonist, apart from the unpredictable wicket gates of romance. But as the soft-spoken Colonel Brandon, Nordrum gives the film’s most nuanced performance that paints the character with colors we haven’t seen in other adaptations before. Elsewhere, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Esmé Creed-Miles do fine and familiar work in their exploration of the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood between the two oldest Dashwood daughters.

In terms of presentation, director Georgia Oakley jettisons the more whimsical touches we associated with Austen’s work to make her Sense And Sensibility a more solemn and serious-minded affair. The staid cinematography by Arnaud Potier drains the warmer colors of those 1990s Austen adaptations, favoring a more subdued palette that makes more frequent use of dramatic close-ups as opposed to wide shots. Instead of the aristocratic frolic of Patrick Doyle’s music from the 1995 movie, composer Roger Goula’s score is more melodramatic and melancholy, typified by mournful choirs and downcast strings. The music is generally more insistent in its accompaniment as well, even drowning out some of the laugh lines at key moments of comic relief. I counted multiple instances where Fiona Shaw tries to rattle off a one-liner but the score undercuts the attempted witticism.

Still, this Sense And Sensibility is a reasonable entry point to on-screen Austen and younger folks willing to give this a chance may prefer this moodier version to the refined, “capital-P productions” from decades earlier. Perhaps those more stagey cinematic creations are seen as stilted and old-fashioned now, just as musicals from the 1960s seemed to me when I was a kid in the 90s. The more dour tone of this latest iteration may more keenly reflect the way Gen Z and Alpha feel about the current conditions of financial and romantic hardships they face in their everyday lives. Do we want level-headed art that reflects how things are in the real world or do we want escapist art that lets our minds wander in fantastical worlds for a couple hours? It’s a dilemma that mirrors the two opposing temperaments at the heart of Sense And Sensibility. The “sense” crowd might eat it up but the “sensibility” group may find it stifling.

Score – 3/5

More new movies coming to theaters this weekend:
Street Fighter, starring Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji, adapts the long-running video game series in which a pair of estranged fighters are recruited to enter the World Warrior Tournament and, unbeknownst to them, the two are slated to square off against each other.
Whalefall, starring Austin Abrams and Josh Brolin, is a survival thriller in which a scuba diver searching for his father’s remains in the ocean is swallowed by a sperm whale, leaving him a short window of time to find a way to escape.
Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, starring Mahershala Ali and John Cho, follows a devoutly religious hitman who embarks on a desperate journey across Houston to protect his children after his wife dies, confronting forces closing in and beliefs threatening to unravel.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Digger

At the risk of suggesting that Alejandro González Iñárritu change the first letter in the title of his catastrophe (and nigh-catastrophic) comedy Digger, the auteur’s latest swing for the fences could just as easily be called Bigger. Shot on VistaVision for premium formats and carrying a budget that bubbled up to $180 million after production delays, the distended satire at least has the courtesy to let you see where all of that money ended up. The immaculate production design, led by Academy Award winner Dennis Gassner and Richard Johnson, is some of the finest you’re likely to see this year — any year, really. Every frame is so rich with detail, so packed with visual clues into how this exquisite world revolves, the film practically flows off the edges of the screen and extends infinitely in every direction. It’s the digging beyond this spectacular surface that proves perilous.

In his most intrepid performance since 2008’s Tropic Thunder, Tom Cruise leads the way as Digger Rockwell, a rowdy, rootin’ tootin’ oil tycoon who oversees extraction facilities all over the world. After brushing off numerous warnings from his team in Greenland, methane released from drilling the ice below the production plant has led to a massive explosion. Now, not only is their platform on fire but a gigantic ice shelf has separated from the coast and, according to Rockwell United’s Head of Environmental Safety and Security Dr. Ganesh (Riz Ahmed), is on its way to Norway. With no time to waste, U.S. President Compson (John Goodman) and members of his cabinet rush over to Digger’s mansion and put their heads together as to how to run damage control before the rogue iceberg spells disaster for European sea levels.

By design, Iñárritu positions Cruise, and his larger-than-life persona on and off the screen, at the epicenter of Digger and for the film’s opening stretch, it’s a gamble that mostly pays off. Peripheral characters, like Digger’s sister Emma (Sandra Hüller) and his assistant Lina (Emma D’Arcy), float in and out of his orbit as he scrambles from one lavish room to another. Before the fracking fracas commences, the morning’s first emergency is the immediate health concerns of Digger’s geriatric cat Maggie and it’s immediately clear he doesn’t take bad news well. When the on-call veterinarian comes in to give the latest on her myriad ailments, Digger hastily fires him and seeks the counsel of his personal doc instead; “Yes, you are an expert, and you are not remotely afraid to disappoint me,” Digger barks at the vet before dismissing him.

It’s not surprising that the primary Digger trailer that’s been playing in theaters the past few months has literally been two and a half minutes of a Tom Cruise retrospective, followed by 30 seconds of actual footage from the movie. There’s star power, there’s bankability and then there’s whatever level of religious-adjacent fervor Cruise and his team are hoping to inspire with this marketing. The miscalculation is in putting the type of character he’s playing as the film’s gravitational force, since Digger is quite a chore to spend long periods of time with. If you look at Cruise’s most “off-brand” roles, like Les Grossman from the aforementioned Tropic Thunder or his tell-it-like-it-is pickup artist from Magnolia, there’s a reason these fellas aren’t our protagonists. Cruise is working as hard here as when he’s performing his death-defying stunts in the Mission: Impossible franchise but Iñárritu and his three credited co-writers don’t have his back.

Early on, Digger treats a subordinate to an anecdote about how he hit a home run as a kid in the only one of his baseball games that his grandfather attended. He wasn’t impressed, commenting that hitting it out of the park is easy but actually having to run the bases for a triple is more challenging: “Triples is what’s impressive. Triples requires hustle,” he determined. It’s a meta commentary not only on Cruise and the effort he puts into his work but also on Iñárritu and his career. If winning back-to-back Best Director Oscars for Birdman and The Revenant in the mid-2010s qualify as his “home runs”, then Bardo and now Digger solidify that he’s in his “triples” era. They’re not films that work for everyone but he’s certainly working hard to make them happen. The same can be said for Warner Bros., whose big bets on visionary directors also gave us two of last year’s best films in One Battle After Another and Sinners. Digger marks the studio’s final release before their imminent acquisition by Paramount Skydance and while the shift in strategies remains uncertain, I’ll miss their triples.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Other Mommy, a supernatural horror film starring Jessica Chastain and Jay Duplass, which follows a mother who must do everything to protect her 8-year-old daughter from a supernatural entity that resembles her.
Also coming to theaters is The Social Reckoning, a legal thriller starring Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White, which tells the true story of a young Facebook engineer and a Wall Street Journal reporter working together to blow the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets.
Streaming on Netflix is Animals, a crime thriller starring Ben Affleck and Kerry Washington, centering around a mayoral candidate and his wife as they resort to extreme measures in paying the ransom for their kidnapped son.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup