Airplane movie review May 2025
Well, the pope apparently read my screed about not believing that an American could ever be elected, and decided to prove me wrong by stacking the cardinals with his own peeps.
I had a bunch of new movies favorited for this trip (“The Room Next Door“, “Presence“, “Sing Sing“, “Nosferatu“, etc.) but only got around to a few. Maybe “Sinners” will be on the next flight. I also got sidetracked by watching old eps of Archer (from when it was funny) and 30 Rock (it was always funny). It’s been a tough few months.
- A Complete Unknown: I haven’t seen every other Dylan movie out there, so I can’t diss this on the basis of it not being up to the Pennebaker, Scorsese (2!), or Haynes (though watching Cate Blanchett do Dylan is on my watchlist), so for me this worked. Monica Barbaro is great, Boyd Holbrook (that guy from the not-so-great Justified Detroit series) is a good JC, Scoot McNairie impressed more than the other crap I’ve seen him in, Ed Norton is as annoying as I would imagine Peter Seeger would be, and Elle Fanning is not served well at all by the fictionalizing of Suze Rotolo [1]. I’ve always respected Dylan, but didn’t come around to getting more involved in his work until recently. Maybe he was just more mature at 19 than I am at fucking-old, but the older I get, the better I like his work.[2]
- The Outrun: Sairse Ronan playing an alcoholic. Mesmerizing scenery, and shes’s great actor. Liked it, good movie, like “Under the Volcano” or “Leaving Las Vegas“, a movie that I’ll never watch again.
- Better Man: I had hoped this would be weirder. The concept is good, but in the end it ends up being a long-form version of MTV “Behind The Scenes” with CGI.
[1] My info comes from here. Dylan has apparently long insisted on preserving the privacy of his former lovers and wives. Hint: reader mode
[2] Also some of his albums sound great. I struggle to find new music that doesn’t suffer from the loudness wars. I don’t want to be an old fogie, but when I want that hit of good sound through a good stereo system, most new records don’t got it, so I have to resort to old stuff. [3]
[3] And fuck you I’ve had my hearing checked a number of times. I struggle with voices in a crowded room, but both my audiologist and the Apple hearing test tell me that I’ve still got really good ears even at high frequencies. Despite years of power tools, concerts (fan and musician), gunfire, and assholes.
Gene and Val
For Gene Hackman, I watched some mid-tier things that I had missed before, like Runaway Jury. Fine, but I always go back to Heist. A whole movie of Hackman saying things like:
”He isn’t gonna shoot me? Then he hadn’t oughta point a gun at me. It’s insincere.”
“Don’t you want to hear my last words?” “I just did.”
“I’m not that smart. I try to imagine a fella smarter than myself, then I ask myself, what would he do?”
The little smile at the end is perfect.
For Val Kilmer, of course there is Tombstone, and Top Gun, and Real Genius. Salton Sea, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, and a bunch of forgettable stuff, but Spartan is the one I watch over and over.
“In the city, a reflection. In the forest, a sound.”
“What about the desert?”
“You don’t want to go to the desert.”
Ebert liked them both, 3.5 and 4 stars respectively.
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