Rexcpectations: Bugonia

Not much to say about this one. “Bugonia” is the latest from Yorgos Lanthimos. The only film of his that I’ve seen is “The Favourite” and let’s just say that it wasn’t my favorite. This film is about a couple of men who kidnap a high-ranking exec (played by Emma Stone) because they believe her to be an alien who is attempting to take over the Earth.

EXPECT: AN OVERLONG TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE
This is a film that has a fairly straight-forward premise and that’s pretty much the movie. There are a couple weird side stories that don’t really add up to much but there isn’t a lot going on for a two hour film. It kind of feels like there was a 70 page script and then more was added to make it feature length. The other issue with the pacing is that it often left you waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead of things happening quickly with a sense of surprise, I often found myself waiting for things to happen already. The last act moves with a bit more pace but I feel like the whole film would have had more tension and more momentum had they trimmed it down a bit.

EXPECT: QUALITY ACTING
Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons carry the film with their performances and Aidan Delbis is also quite good. It’s hard to judge comedian Stavros Halkias’s performance because I think it was a fairly thankless role (and a part that seemed like it was tossed in to beef up the page count of the script.) I will say, as good as Plemons is, I felt like this was a role made for Caleb Landry Jones.

For me, Bugonia lands at #13 on my list of 2025 films, in between “Friendship” and “If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You”.

Recxpectations: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere

One image that I always think of when I hear Bruce Springsteen’s name is an old cartoon that showed a classroom and in the front row was Bob Dylan who is taking a test. In the second row is Bruce Springsteen, who is looking over Dylan’s shoulder to take answers from his test. And in the third row is John (Cougar) Mellencamp who is sneaking a look at Springsteen’s paper, trying to take answers from him. I’m sure Springsteen fans won’t appreciate this image but it’s one that stuck with me and it feels especially funny that Springsteen’s documentary would show up a year after the Dylan flick “Complete Unknown” came out. It’s also interesting how “Deliver Me From Nowhere” is kind of the inverse of “Complete Unknown.” Where Dylan went electric, Springsteen goes acoustic. While Dylan pushed away his past and was always exploring for something new, Springsteen is haunted by his past and craves a return to the world he once knew. Dylan is assured and cocky while Springsteen is lost and depressed. But, in terms of the films, the biggest difference is that it is simply much easier to show Dylan’s path and devil-may-care attitude than it is to bring Springsteen’s personal and inner issues to the big screen.

EXPECT: A VIDEO ACCOMPANIMENT OF THE BOOK
I haven’t read the book “Deliver Me From Nowhere” but people rave about how great is is. And while I was watching the movie, I kept feeling some certain moments and references were probably signposts for memorable passages in the book. But, for me, too much of the film felt flat. Moments didn’t carry any oomph. There was no impact and not really any consequences. Hell, there’s barely even an antagonist. Bruce’s father looms large over things but he’s mostly seen in forgettable flashbacks.

EXPECT: A MOVIE ABOUT DEPRESSION
I feel like this is the most important thing about to expect because for the first two-thirds of the film, I was watching a fairly cliched story about a guy dealing with new-found stardom, past trauma, and trying to bring his unconventional next idea to life. So for me, the third act suddenly being about Springsteen suffering from depression struck me as a bit out of nowhere. Yes, he mentions being lost and what not but it seemed like the usual tortured poet storyline from most every music biopic. I think knowing that the film is about depression will give people a better headspace to view what unfolds. His passion isn’t just about artistic vision and something he wants to say, it’s also about a deeper struggle.

DON’T EXPECT: MUCH SET-UP
The movie kicks off with Bruce wrapping his tour for The River and heading off to New Jersey to relax and work on his next album. But because Bruce is immediately off by himself and immediately dropped into Tortured Poet mode, it’s kind of hard to figure out how big of star he is, how much his life has changed, and how he’s affected by the change. We still see him jamming at the local bar with his friends. He’s going to diners without being mobbed by fans. Again, this is an example of where the book probably paints a more vivid picture of where Bruce was and where he suddenly found himself. Director Scott Cooper’s previous film “Black Mass” is a film that has grown on me and I think what really helps that film is the testimony from Whitey Bulger’s accomplices that is sprinkled in throughout the film. It’s a clever way to inject exposition into the film and help explain the growth and changes we’re seeing in the scenes. In Deliver Me From Nowhere, Cooper attempts a similar trick by having a couple of scenes with Jeremy Strong’s Jon Landau talking to his wife. This approach didn’t work for me for two reasons - a) whereas “Black Mass” was often just explaining the basic facts of what was happening, this film’s exposition was about Bruce Springsteen’s mindset and inner turmoil, which is a harder sell coming from a third party and b) the scenes just came off as self-serious and disconnected. They felt like scenes that were added in later in reshoots to help spell out what was happening.

EXPECT: AN ARTIST APPROVED FILM
Bruce doesn’t really do anything wrong here. He’s not great with the love interest in the movie but even then, it’s painted more as a symptom of his struggle. In reality, the Faye character is a composite of multiple girlfriends.The single mom he dated, I believe, was Karen Darvin, a model who would later go onto marry Todd Rundgren, not exactly a waitress at a diner. Obviously, all biopics are going to have to cheat a little to fit the story into two hours but this change feels particularly false and like a plot device for the film.

DON’T EXPECT: A FILM THAT WILL CONVERT PEOPLE
Again, because so much feels left out and there’s no real set-up for how we got here, this doesn’t seem like a film that will bring in new fans. I think Springsteen’s fans will eat it up but it won’t make much of a dent in pop culture.

DON’T EXPECT: THE “HOLE IN HIS BEDROOM” SPEECH
It’s always interesting when a trailer for a film is built around something that doesn’t actually appear in the movie. Part of me wonders if the filmmakers saw all of the social media chatter about how that monologue reminded everyone of something from “Walk Hard”. Or maybe they realized that it was a little too self-serious and also that it kind of, in a way, flew in the face of the ultimate point of the film.

Recxpectations: If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You

“If I Had Legs, I’d Kick You'“ lets the viewer watch as an overwhelmed mother struggles to singlehandedly take care of her sick daughter, sort out a house disaster that forces them to move into a nearby motel, while also handling her work life as a therapist.

EXPECT: THE FEEL BAD MOVIE OF THE YEAR
”If I Had Legs…” is basically a movie for all of the moms out there; it shows the burdens of motherhood and, more importantly, how there’s no escape from it. The movie lets the audience feel the struggle and, at times, hopelessness of trying to keep everyone happy and everything on the rails. And at nearly two hour long, it’s a tough watch.

EXPECT: AN ACTING EXERCISE
Rose Byrne carries this movie. Her performance will likely be one of the best of the year but I could see it not getting award love because the film is such a tough watch and she doesn’t play the most likable of characters.

EXPECT: THINGS TO GET TRIPPY
The film occasionally veers into dream-like states (or drug induced moments). Honestly, I didn’t quite get those parts.

This film kind of reminded me of a low-budget version of Aronofsky’s “Mother!” The messages of the two films are the same but the feel is similar. It’s not as insane as that film but it’s like if the craziness of “Mother!” was stuck inside of one mother and we watched her rapid decline.

This is another tough one to rank as, like Frankenstein, it’s a film that I admired more than enjoyed. However, I was never bored in this one and I think it did a more impressive job getting its point across. For now, I dropped it in at 13, one spot ahead of “A House of Dynamite”.

Recxpecations: Frankenstein

Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is making its short run in theaters before hitting Netflix in November. I do think that seeing it in a theater is better because the strength of the film is its look but, on the other hand, the film is a slow two hours and thirty minutes so being nestled up at home has its advantages.

EXPECT: A NEW TAKE ON FRANKENSTEIN
Well, I should say a new take that is closer to the original take than the 1931 movie was. del Toro’s film is closer to Mary Shelley’s novel but it seems like it still has some changes. This take also seems intent on making sure nobody leaves the theater questioning who the real monster is.

EXPECT: A GREAT LOOKING FILM
As always, Guillermo del Toro knows how to make a film look stunning. I feel like this film is a step behind some of his others because - for obvious reasons - there are a lot of CGI-laden sets. There’s just something a little less imposing or haunting about a locale when you can tell it isn’t really there. (But, obviously, creating it in real life would have been far too expensive so I can’t blame him.)

DON’T EXPECT: A MONSTER MOVIE
Nobody is going to call this movie a thrill ride. It’s more about the comings-of-age of Victor and his creation. People shouldn’t go in expecting a movie that they’ll routinely go back to for some scares around Halloween. It’s more human than horror.

This is a tough film to rank because I appreciated it - the film restored my faith in Oscar Isaac - but I didn’t really enjoy it. I felt bad for the people sitting behind me because I was moving around so much (although I blame the seats at The Egyptian Theater for some of that shifting.) For now, I ranked it at #20 for the year.

NEW THING #36 - TASK

HBO’s “Task” is getting a lot of love but I have to say, I really didn’t care for it. I was going to write a long piece about why I disliked it and how I think it gives us a good look into how people can support questionable politicians, pundits, and celebs but I doubt I’ll dedicate the time to it.

Brad Inglesby seems to have cracked the critic code - take a fairly pedestrian story and add sorrow. make it feel grim, and cast great actors and that will pull the attention away from the rather middling storytelling. I was a fan of Mare of Easttown but I was willing to admit that it had its weaknesses and also used annoying misdirects for its cliffhangers.

I’m sure if you get into it, the film is engrossing and quite the ride but, sadly, I never could get into it.

Recxpectations: After The Hunt

I don’t know if I truly got what “After the Hunt” was going for. Then again, I think that I actually understood it fine and was just unmoved by it.

SYNOPSIS: The pompous ivory tower of Yale is rocked when a young philosophy student accuses a popular professor of sexual assault. Julia Roberts plays the mentor of the student and friend of the accused, stuck in the middle of the crisis.

EXPECT: JULIA ROBERTS’S CHARACTER TO BE THE CENTRAL FIGURE
On one hand, this should be obvious since Julia Roberts is the biggest star in the movie, however, the trailer features a line from Ayo Edebiri, “It’s just, like, amazing to me, a young black woman can get assaulted and all these white people figure out a way to make it about themselves.” and then the movie does just that. And Roberts’s character isn’t nearly as interesting as Ayo’s, a young black woman who had been adopted into a rich family who has donated “half the campus” at Yale University, so she is presumably both a “black face in a historically white place” and a person who benefits from privilege (but the privilege comes from her adopted parents, adding another layer.) There’s a potentially fascinating identity politics character study there but, instead, Ayo is mostly there to bring conflict into Julia Roberts’s life. This also reminded me a little bit of the film “Luce”, which I liked much more.
Again, maybe I didn’t get it and there’s a meta-commentary about Hollywood here and how films handle non-white characters but I’m not so sure about that.

DON’T EXPECT: EXPOSITORY DIALOGUE
I feel like Goldilocks right now because I’m constantly complaining about too much expository dialogue but this film had a complete lack of it. We often are learning things in the middle of a conflict, which tends to be more distracting than additive.

EXPECT: BAD DECISIONS
In some cases, the bad decisions are part of what seems to be the core thesis on the film - These high-minded Ivy League types are as dumb as the rest of us - but, other times, they seem to be the cardinal sin of Bad Decisions - Because The Story Needs It. Combined with the previous issue of lack of expository dialogue, there’s one C or D story that goes from What the Fuck?! to Why the Fuck?! (Granted, when you look back, it’s easy to figure out why it went down the way it did but it is less rewarding discovery and more, “Oh, I guess that’s why.”)

EXPECT: A MEANDING BACK HALF
At the Alamo Drafthouse, they bring the check to you when there’s about 45 minutes left in the film. I was surprised when the check came because this film is 2 hours and 19 minutes so I was really engrossed in the film and it was moving along. And then things screech to a halt. I think a large part of it, for me, was because the movie really starts to focus on Julia Roberts’s characters and some issues that one might call “mysterious” and others, like myself, would call “vague to the point of not all that interesting.” Even the cinematography, which was impressive for most of the film, starts to become overbearing and there were a couple of “Ooh, look at this angle. ARTSY!” moments.

Ultimately, this film didn’t quite work for me. I ranked it at #21 of the year, in between smaller indie fare “Pools” and “The Baltimorons”.

Recxpectations: Good Fortune

Well, to be fair, it’s not called “great” fortune. My TL;DR recommendation for “Good Fortune” is expect a so-so comedic morality play. It’s weird to say that a film doesn’t build off of it’s trailer but I feel like if you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve pretty much seen all the film has to offer. Basically, it’s not a preview as much as it is a good Cliff Notes version of the film. “Good Fortune” is not bad, it’s not good, it is incredibly forgettable.

EXPECT: A MORALITY PLAY BY A RICH GUY FOR RICH PEOPLE
Before the movie, Alamo Drafthouse showed an interview with writer-director-star Aziz Ansari and Aziz talked about how he was shadowing delivery drivers, delivered food himself, and interview all sorts of union reps and working class people. I’m not sure where that shows up in the film unless, beforehand, Aziz had literally no clue about what it was like to be poor. This is a fairly standard “It’s the friends you make along the way” morality tale with no real insight into the struggles of the working class besides "This sucks.” I don’t think working class people have much to glean from it and it definitely isn’t playing to the incel crowd since homeless Aziz Ansari lands Keke Palmer. It’s nice and all but it’s the kind of film that seems like it’s made for rich, older, and mildly out of touch Democrats to root for as they go back not actually doing much to change things.

DON’T EXPECT: A LAUGH RIOT
I’m not going to say that this isn’t a comedy and I’ll acknowledge that the best jokes were already shown in the trailer but beyond that, there aren’t really any comedic set pieces in this film. Despite the swapping of lives, which one would think would lend itself to some fish-out-of-water hijinks, the comedy is mostly dialogue-driven. The good moments had more to do with…

EXPECT: KEANU TO BE THE STAR
And not just because he’s the biggest movie star in the movie. Keanu’s character - the angel Gabriel - is the one who faces the biggest changes, the most discoveries, is the the biggest fish the furthest of the water. I can’t help but feel that Aziz’s character should have been the tertiary character while Keanu and Seth Rogen’s characters should have been more of the focus.

DON’T EXPECT: MUCH FROM KEKE PALMER’S CHARACTER
The romance angle is non-existent. I mean, there’s a relationship but it just happens out of nowhere, there’s basically no wooing - it’s Hello to Dating in the blink of an eye - and she seems like she’s mostly there as a plot device.

DON’T EXPECT: A ROUSING CONCLUSION
On one hand, I credit Aziz for not getting completely schmaltzy when things wrap up but, unfortunately, I don’t think he found a replacement. Personally, I thought the ending was unconvincing and fairly uninspiring, which is never great for a morality tale.

New Thing #32: House of Dynamite

House of Dynamite is the latest film from Kathryn Bigelow - The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty, and, most impressively, Point Break - and it follows multiple vantage points within the government after a nuclear weapon is fired from the Pacific Ocean.

EXPECT: A SLICE OF LIFE/WHAT HAPPENS WHEN MOVIE
House of Dynamite is a bare bones film that shows what happens in the various halls of the government and the military when a nuclear weapon is fired at the United States. There are no flowery speeches, no cinematic clashes of personalities, it’s just people trying to deal with a nightmare scenario.

DON’T EXPECT: ANY PERSONALITY
The film almost seems to exist in a political vacuum. Not only are parties never brought up but everyone is completely focused on the job and seem to harbor no opinions on what’s going down or no preconceived opinions. It exists in a world of “What if everyone was actually good at their job” which I’m not sure reflects the world we live in. The film is almost too matter of fact for its own good.

EXPECT: DIMINISHING RETURNS
The story is told three times from various points of view. Obviously, the initial telling of the story is the most propulsive as we’re seeing things unfold for the first time. The second version does a good job at showing some new angles. To me, the third version, which gets a bit more personal, doesn’t have the same impact - no pun intended.

DON’T EXPECT: THE FILM TO PICK A SIDE
Again, this is a matter-of-fact telling of what would happen if a nuclear missle should come our way. The film also doesn’t go into the aftermath of what happened so there’s no time for hindsight or realization of whether decisions were right or wrong.

EXPECT: A SWEDE-ISH REBECCA FERGUSON
It isn’t distracting but there were a few times where it sounded like Rebecca Ferguson’s Swedish accent popped out. Everyone has kind of non-descript American accents; perhaps as another way to keep things as neutral as possible.

In the end, this is a discussion starter of a film. It’s the kind of movie I could see being shown in high school classrooms in the future. But it’s also a movie that people will appreciate more than love. For me, it landed at #14 on my Films of the Year list. I’m sure some people will say that this serious film is “objectively” better filmmaking than The Accountant 2, Friendship, or One of Them Days but I believe that objectivity is based on the subjective take that serious films are more impressive/difficult to make than comedy or even fluff actioners. Also, should lasting impact matter? The credit score scene in One of Them Days will stay with me longer than anything from A House of Dynamite.

New Thing. #31: Big Bear (play)

I stopped hy The Elysian Theater last night to check out Big Bear, a new play about a group of college friends on their annual trip; it’s the final morning of the trip and things fall apart as truths are unveiled and the friends start to realize that maybe their collegiate friendships have run their course.
It’s a very funny play and is the kind of thing that I feel like a streaming service should live stream or just record for content. On the same note, it’s astonishing to me that no streaming service has picked up an improv show to stream. Obviously, there are countless improv performances out there and in LA, there are quite a few with recognizable actors; I have to imagine there could be a way to do a low budget livestream. Of course, it doesn’t seem like there’s a single streaming service that is being run by a person with an ounce of creativity; hell, they can’t even successfully rip-off what YouTube and TikTok are doing.

Recxpectations - Tron: Ares

Tron: Ares is the latest attempt to elevate the Tron franchise. To me, Tron kind of is what it is; a style over substance exercise with scores that are better than the films (well, at least for the last two entries; I don’t remember the score of the original.) In this one, the plot is basically that rival corporations struggle to find the key to 3D printing living organisms, one side wanting to use it to help those in need and the other side wanting to create supersoldiers and military hardware to go with them.

EXPECT: A SERVANT WITH TOO MANY MASTERS
To me, the biggest issue for Tron: Ares is that it doesn’t seem to know what it is. It’s a Disney movie but it seems more aimed at adults than kids. It’s a sequel that tries to cater to new viewers but then has some moments that require you to have seen the earlier films. The core is a Sci-Fi film but it’s dumb Sci-Fi and really, it’s just a vehicle for a few cool-looking action scenes. It wants to be a message movie but doesn’t really seem to have much to say. The film is also torn between Ares and Greta Lee’s character and it doesn’t really tell either story with much depth. But, again, this is a movie about FX and the scores and it succeeds on that end… mostly.

EXPECT: CINEMA OF CHAOS
Cinema of Chaos is a term that was coined a while back to describe the trend of action scenes that had fast, hectic editing to the point that it was hard to decipher what was happening. The peak example is the opening scene of Quantum of Solace. It’s a lot of action and noise but it’s also complete mayhem and hard to follow. Tron: Ares isn’t as bad as that scene but nothing is really set-up and it’s basically just “Cool looking cars with neon tails coming out of them!” There also is a complete lack of fallout from most of the chases. One car is cut in half by the laser trail and then… it’s basically people breaking quickly like the cars in a Smokey & the Bandit movie. Now I have to admit that I’m bored of most chase scenes but these felt even more lackluster because of direction.

DON’T EXPECT: A SMART MOVIE
Listen, it’s Tron. It was never going to be hard sci-fi. And it’s not the dumbest movie and not near the suspension of disbelief needed by something like a Fast and Furious movie but the movie doesn’t have much of a relationship with logic. Especially when it comes to the antagonists’ weapons. Things that seem all-powerful one second seem to get nerfed when a key character is in the fight. Everyone chooses hand-to-hand combat when they clearly have better options at their disposal. To best enjoy the movie, you need to just turn your brain off and sit back and enjoy.

DON’T EXPECT: TRON ON EARTH
Most of the Tron on Earth scenes are in the trailer and the premise of these programs invading Earth doesn’t really come to fruition until the final act and even then it is on a smaller scale. This is another example of how the film was serving too many masters. They shoved too many premises into one film.

Ultimately, this film ended up at #36 on my list, in between The Lost Bus and The Roses.

Recxpectations: Play Dirty

Shane Black’s latest movie is “Play Dirty” (New Thing #29), Hollywood’s latest attempt to make the fetchest of characters, Parker, into a thing. From what I can gather, Parker is pretty much a no nonsense master criminal, which is pretty generic and bland nowadays. But the Hollywood suits keep trying to make it work. (Not that there haven’t been some quality adaptations but they’ve either been decades ago or not done in America.) I’m forgoing my usual attempt at being objective because I really didn’t care for this one.

EXPECT: AN OVERLONG 80s ACTION TV SHOW
It’s kind of bizarre that the guy who kind of pushed action films forward with Lethal Weapon suddenly devolved into a throwaway actioner like this. This film pretty much brings nothing new to the table. The opening scene absolutely reminded me of 80s action shows. Then it shifted to kind of Uncharted until it settled into being as generic as one could imagine.

EXPECT: HORRIBLE CGI
I think the biggest mistake movies make with special effects is that they believe they can get away with bigger scenes than they can afford because they can just rely on CGI to carry the load. But, of course, they never really seem to take into consideration how much GOOD special effects cost and then you end up with something that looks like the rough draft of a video game cut scene. “Play Dirty” has multiple action scenes with horrible CGI. They should have instead rewritten the script and come up with some clever action set-ups that they could have afforded.

EXPECT: SHANE BLACK’S WORST
Shane Black isn’t without his misfires and I know that Predator fans will say that Shane Black’s take on that franchise is his biggest sin but, for me, this one was the most disappointing. And I say that as someone who went in with lower expectations. This is my second least favorite film of the year. Mark Wahlberg is in his muted “tough guy” mode. LaKeith Stanfield does what he can with the surprisingly lame material. It just feels like another director got a bag of money from a streamer and decided to fart out whatever came to mind.

I also have to add that nobody has bystanders killed for laughs like Shane Black does. He did it in Nice Guys (a film I love) and again here. This one isn’t as random as the two in Nice Guys but does seem unnecessary.

New Thing #28: Eureka Day

Sometimes going blind into something is a plus and sometime’s it’s better to know what you’re getting into. Eureka Day is billed as a comedy - and there are a lot of moments that had the crowd laughing raucously - the core of the play is a debate over vaccinations. As good as the play is (and it is quite good), I feel like there are a lot of people who probably aren’t all that interested in rehashing that debate.
Still, everyone should go see it and support the arts! The performances are great! Go to Pasadena Playhouse while you still have the chance!

New Things Tuesday: Trivia @ Kiez Küche & Beer Garden

Tuesday was a surprisingly busy day on the new things front. Things kicked off with trivia at Kiez Küche & Beer Garden (New Thing #24) in Highland Park. It’s a nice spot and I had some schnitzel which was fine. I can’t say that this is a destination eatery but if you’re looking for some easy trivia, this place has it. We only missed like a handful of questions and took first place.

After trivia, I decided to bop around town on a solo mission. One thing I learned is that, on Tuesdays, Highland Park bars tend to close at midnight. I stopped in a Johnny’s - Cocktails and Hi-Fi (New Thing #25) which was fine. A bunch of people drinking alone, which was a little odd for a nice spot but hey, I was adding to that vibe so I can’t say anything. Maybe on a busier night it is more social but it struck me as a date place or somewhere to go to catch up with friends.

After that, I went to a questionable new thing - I headed west and went to The High Low (New Thing #26). which is the new version of The Griffin. I’d been to The Griffin before but I’m still counting it as new. I really liked the set-up. It’s a cool bar and they fixed it up nicely and then off in a side room they had karaoke. The karaoke wasn’t that intrusive to the main bar so it was kind of the best of both worlds.

Finally, I decided to check out The Gentleman’s Club (New Thing #27), which was kind of dumb because how busy did I expect a strip club to be on a random Tuesday night. I was the only guy in the place but the ladies were nice and I found someone to fall in love with since I’m an easy mark so that was fun. I was surprised to find that this place also served beer after 2am which appears to be a trend for Glendale strip clubs.

New Thing #23: Verse in Toluca Lake

Verse is billed as a supper club built inside of recording studio. The restaurant comes from a Grammy-winning sound mixer and promises live music every night. And I have to say, the sound is pretty much perfect. We had a duo of Spanish guitar players - we were told it was flamenco music when we sat down but I didn’t get that vibe from them, not that I’m well versed in flamenco music - and it was the perfect volume. Loud enough to listen to but quiet enough that you could still have a conversation. The food was also quite good. I got the lobster tagliatelle that made me nervous at first because it was surrounded by the foam but it was foamed butter so nothing crazy. I’d definitely recommend Verse for a date night or quieter dinner with friends; this definitely isn’t a place that you want to have any sort of boisterous meet-up but if you’re looking for a meal with some nice ambience, Verse is a good spot in The Valley.
My only real concern about the place is that it is open from 5 - 10 and, since there is music to listen to, it feels like a place that will only get one sitting per table, two at most. We showed up at 6:30 and left at 9. And there weren’t many people there when we arrived and I didn’t see anyone leave while we were there. I have to imagine that one seating a night isn’t great for a restaurant, even if they own the building.

Recxpectations: One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson’s new film “One Battle After Another” comes out this weekend and it feels like a film that could become a lightning rod even though I personally didn’t think it said all that much.

EXPECT: A THREE HOURS EXPERIENCE
The runtime is around two hours and forty five minutes so, when you add in trailers and what not, you’re going to be in your seat for three+ hours. Personally, I didn’t feel the time at all for the first two hours but the third act started to drag for me.

EXPECT: AN ACTION MOVIE
When compared to other Hollywood action films, One Battle After Another is obviously going to be a critical darling. And if you go into it expecting a Hollywood action film, you probably won’t be as disappointed when the last 45 minutes of One Battle After Another becomes One Cliche After Another. It’s odd that there were complaints about how to market this film because it’s arguably PTA’s most commercial movie. Although I think the concerns were because…

EXPECT: CONSERVATIVE COMPLAINTS
On one hand, I can’t disagree with conservatives who complain that the right wing figures in this film are borderline cartoonish. On the other hand, our current real-life Conservative leaders are pretty darn cartoonish. There also isn’t much pushback or questioning of the domestic terrorists who are the protagonists in the film. I expect right-wing pundits to go too far with their complaints per usual but I can absolutely understand and agree with the core of their discontent even if…

DON’T EXPECT: A POLITICAL FILM
One Battle After Another is a movie of the time more than about the time. Our current political situation is the backdrop of the movie but it’s an action movie more than a statement movie. It’s like saying The Beekeeper is making a statement about the heartless financial corruption that permeates all of American life and politics. I honestly don’t know what it’s trying to say unless it really is saying that all conservatives are cartoonish racists and domestic terrorists are righteous but I can’t imagine that’s what PTA is going for. Sadly, I think some people will claim this is political because just showing Mexican immigrants as people and not criminals is treated like a major statement. But that criticism is more of a comment on modern times than the movie is.

I’m not sure where to rank One Battle After Another; I have it at #6 right now but it could be as high as #3.

Recxpectations: Adulthood

Adulthood is a film about two siblings who, after their mother ends up in the hospital with a stroke, return to their childhood home and discover a body hidden in the walls. Dark hijinks ensue. (I would recommend only watching the first minute or so of the trailer or skipping it outright because it shows a lot of the movie.)

EXPECT: BLAND FARGO
Small town noir/murder stories are always going to get compared to Fargo, which is probably unfair since that is a classic that few will live up to, but such is life and this film lacks the quirkiness of the Coen Brothers. Josh Gad’s character is a Hollywood writer, which leads to a few good jokes but not much more. The location was everytown; I saw a map of New York in a scene but the film was shot in Ottawa. I know that it’s hard to build a sense of community in a lower budgeted (I’m assuming) film that can’t give a bunch of random characters speaking lines but this film felt like the characters were almost completely isolated from the outside world. “Adulthood” is focused almost completely on the siblings and I feel like it could have been better if it was more of an ensemble piece.

EXPECT: SHODDY POLICE WORK
I understand that people don’t have a ton of faith in the police and, given the solve rate for murders, maybe that lack of faith has been earned, but it always bugs me when cops just miss obvious things and this movie even has the detective straight up say that it’s awfully suspicious that so much is happening since the brother and sister have shown up. But there’s almost zero investigation and I feel like the detective character has maybe one scene that doesn’t include the siblings. There’s one moment in particular that should have been fairly impactful but it is never mentioned again.

DON’T EXPECT: A TON OF TWISTS AND TURNS
The synopsis of the movie makes it seem like there’s one twist after another. About an hour into the movie, I thought, “So this is more like hijink (singular) ensues.” I’m not saying that there aren’t a few turns along the way but I’d hardly call it a twisty movie; it’s moreso in the genre of “Someone gets increasingly in over their head.”

EXPECT: A FEEL BAD MOVIE
This was never going to be a feel good movie but, by the end, I was pretty much turned off. The lack of detective work made it less of a game of cat and mouse and more just watching a cat beat up a dead mouse. It’s also a movie that has a message and I can see what they are trying to say but it wasn’t a direction I wanted to go so I can’t say that they didn’t stick the landing but I was neither entertained nor impressed by how they wrapped things up.

Ultimately, the film is better than the standard straight-to-DVD crime drama but it’s ultimately a fairly forgettable experience. It’s a kind of film that gets a “Hey, you know what I just saw that wasn’t too bad” if you stumbled upon it on TV.

New Thing #20 - Alien: Earth

So I finished up the final episode of FX’s Alien: Earth and I have to say… it was OK. It is very well made and has a lot of cool ideas but my main problem with the show is that it worked better IMO as a Blade Runner series than an Alien spinoff. The aliens were kind of the least interesting element of the show and even though I liked some of what they did with the eyeball monster, it didn’t amount to much. The battle between the corporations and the different cyborg/synthetic beings was more interesting to me. I also feel like they made Wendy/Marcy too powerful. The show had too much of “And then Wendy is able too…” alongside the usual horror staple of people doing incredibly dumb things at the worst time. In general, people on the show accepted the existence of these crazy alien species a bit too quickly.

I’m probably in for Season 2 but I feel like that could take a while to materialize.

Recxpectation: The Lost Bus

The Lost Bus is an Apple+ movie with a limited theatrical release starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera. It’s a ripped-from-the-headlines movie; a true story about a bus driver who went to pick up some kids who were deep into the Camp Fire of 2018.

I’m not going to go too deep into this one because these kind of “Too Soon?” movies - usually made by Peter Berg/Mark Wahlberg - aren’t my cup of tea and a pet peeve of mine is when people who don’t like a genre of films pass judgement on new films in said genre. But let’s just say that this film didn’t change my mind on the genre.

EXPECT: a well-made movie of the week
Paul Greengrass (Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum, Green Zone) directed the film and it has the feel of his previous films. The script, however, is pretty rough. The character moments are schmaltzy. The storyline about Cal Fire team trying to stop the spread of the fire is pretty much just there to serve as expository dialogue. While the direction was good, there were a few gimmicks they tried out that I didn’t think worked. And there’s also a random story that, as far as I could tell, they completely abandoned (but I could have misremembered that.)

Personally, I felt the film was probably 10 - 20 minutes too long. It ranks at #33 in my Movies of 2025 list.

New Thing #18: Izzie Pop's Amateur Night

Uncle Ollie’s Penthouse in DTLA is my new favorite bar and they had an Amateur Night that I decided to check out. About 15 seconds into the first dancer, I called bullshit on the “Amateur” angle unless there are a lot more people who just casually take pole dancing classes than I realize. All in all, it was a fun night. A lot of positive people celebrating people going out and doing their thing and the performers were impressive.
Uncle Ollie’s also has Gong Shot Karaoke on Wednesdays which I’ve done - you sing, three comedians watch and either gong you or give you an American Idol-style review when you’re done, the highest score of the night wins a bong - and that’s fun. It’s also just a cool looking bar so I recommend people check it out.

New Thing #17: COSM

I forgot to add “In The Mood For Love” (#16) in my New Things count so we’re onto New Thing #17 and that is seeing a game at COSM in Inglewood. COSM is kind of a mini-version of Vegas’s Sphere and they show sports games and movies there. I was a little nervous about going there because I wasnt sure if we were going to be stuck with one angle but they have multiple “in-stadium” angles and they also show the broadcast on the screen (although I feel like they could bring the broadcast screens down a bit.)
The tickets are around $100 but I think it’s worth checking out. The only downside is that the drinks are pricey and the food is probably not worth the money. It’s not bad but I’d recommend eating before the game.