Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kieran Culkin, Jennifer Grey, Will Sharpe, Kurt, Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy, Daniel Oreskes
Grade: B+
Jesse Eisenberg’s second feature as writer-director shows a massive leap in maturity, thanks in large part to the personal subject matter at its heart. A Real Pain isn’t necessarily an autobiographical film for the multi-hyphenate star, but there are elements which he has explicitly stated are pulled from real-life details about his family history. It’s a free-wheeling road trip film that visits pain both personal and historical, anchored by an ensemble that gels together as well as any film this year.
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Sacha Baron Cohen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, HoYeon Jung, Louis Partridge, Leslie Manville, Leila George
Grade: A-
Warning: The review of the season premiere of Disclaimer will contain spoilers.
It shouldn’t be understated how rare it is to see the massive abundance of talent behind and in front of the camera in AppleTV+’s latest limited series Disclaimer. It’s become too easy to joke how Apple fills its catalog with projects with A-list stars but barely remembers to promote them, but a series which boasts Oscar winners and nominees like Alfonso Cuarón (who writes and directs each episode), Cate Blanchett, Kevin Kline, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Sacha Baron Cohen, cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, and music from Finneas O’Connell simply demands attention from the start.
“Do you remember when we had two grocery stores?” It’s an off-handed remark between two nameless citizens of director Joel Fendelman’s titular small town, but it reveals a great deal about its place in the world. North Putman follows a school year in and around the central Indiana school district, popping in and out of all of its various issues, big and small. It’s a fascinatingly complex look at small town life, and the ambitions of its residents. Whether it’s the big topics like a school board meeting discussing DEI initiatives, a kid bringing a knife to school, or something as small as kids telling jokes on a school bus, Fendelman’s camera gives it all equal weight. The film may not be anything revolutionary that wasn’t already explored in films like Frederick Wiseman’s Monrovia, Indiana (which is situated just 30 miles from North Putnam), but it’s an engrossing look at small town life under a microscope.
Indiana lives and breathes basketball, so a documentary like The Waiting Game, which chronicles the American Basketball Association’s retired players fighting for their well-earned pensions is – pardon the pun – a slam dunk. Michael Husain’s feature debut is more traditional in approach, with talking head interviews and Ken Burns-style photo overlays, but it always returns to its subjects and their quest for justice. It’s the kind of documentary that easily provokes, spotlighting the history of the ABA, and how instrumental their players were in the development of the NBA as we know it today. But those players, when the NBA absorbed the ABA, lost the rights to their pension and the healthcare that went with it. Whether you have an encyclopedic knowledge of basketball history, or simply want to learn about a modern David versus Goliath story, The Waiting Game is a confident piece of non-fiction storytelling.
Joy Dietrich’s Attachment Project takes a personal look at adoption, and her long-simmering feelings towards the process and how difficult it can be for both children and adults to adapt. The film follows Joy, and a handful of fellow foreign-born adoptees, who struggled to fit in to their new surroundings when they were kids. What follows is a number of heartbreaking scenes that chronicle their parents often controversial ways of acclimating the kids through a number of difficult methods of therapy that often leave them off worse than the beginning. Dietrich herself goes on her own journey of discovery to reconnect with her adoptive father after a prolonged absence. The film raises a number of introspective questions that adoptees often face: Why did my birth parents abandon me? Am I worthy of being loved? Would my life have been better if I had remained with my birth parents? Attachment Project maybe doesn’t provide universal catharsis with its answers, but it shows a fascinating journey for its subjects nonetheless.
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedou, Stephen Dillane, Saskia Reeves
Grade: B
The Outrun is a story of addiction – alcohol addiction, specifically – but it’s a film that looks at the almost mythological origins of addiction. Are we born an addict, or is it borne from circumstance? It’s fitting for a film set on the Scottish coast, where its main character, played with devastating humanity by Saoirse Ronan, is a biologist who often waxes poetic about humanity’s origins. Character studies about addicts, or even unlikeable protagonists, are nearly as old as film itself, and while writer-director Nora Fingsheidt’s film isn’t an entirely fresh entry, it feels like it comes from a place of genuine sincerity.
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener
Grade: C+
It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the release of Todd Phillips’ Joker. Whether you loved it or hated it, the movie’s status as a phenomenon is undeniable. Not only did it become the highest grossing R-rated movie (at the time), but it was hard to escape since it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and won the prestigious Golden Lion Award. Regardless of what any individual felt, it got a lot of people talking and even became a bit of a hot-button political issue.
The Movie State 