Review - Carmen Jones (1954)

September 1, 2026
 
Review – Carmen Jones – U.S., 1954
 

Let’s start with the obvious. When you hear that there’s a musical starring Harry Belafonte and Dorothy Dandridge, you don’t expect to hear lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein set to classical music by French composer Georges Bizet. Belafonte had begun his career backed by the Charlie Parker Band in the late 1940s, and he would go on to record twenty-seven albums and appear in at least fourteen films. Dandridge had begun her career in a song-and-dance act with her sister before making her screen debut in Bing Crosby and W.C. Fields’s 1935 musical-comedy Mississippi. She went on to make ten Soundies from 1941-1942, a period of time in which she also performed in one of Duke Ellington’s musical reviews. She recorded a jazz album in 1958, which sadly remained unreleased until 1999. My point is this: Both of the stars of Carmen Jones were amazing performers, so imagine my surprise when they open up their mouths and out come the operatic stylings on LeVern Hutcherson and Marilyn Horne.
 
Having said that, I have to admit there is a strange, unfortunate logic to this choice. See, the film is an adaptation of the 1943 stage musical of the same name, and this musical was itself an adaptation of Bizet’s 1875 opera Carmen, which stirred up controversy with its depiction of immorality and murder. It seems understandable then that someone thought it would be a good idea to mix Bizet’s notes with lyrics by the person who penned such theatrical classics as “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair.” Who knew the results would sound more similar to the masterful 1957 Looney Tunes cartoon What’s Opera, Doc than Roger & Hammerstein’s classic Oklahoma?
 
At its core, Carmen Jones is a tale of tragic temptation. Belafonte plays a soldier named Joe who seems to be perfectly content. Not only is he is engaged to a terrific woman who is equally crazy about him, but he is also about to begin training as a pilot. In fact, in the early moments of the film, he and his girlfriend Cindy Lou make plans to elope. Dandridge plays Carmen, and when we first see her, wearing a black and red dress with a red rose on it, she walks around a mess hall checking out her options, and singing a song that includes the telling lyric, “If I love you, that’s the end of you.” After a major dust-up, Joe is tasked with taking Carmen to civilian authorities 50 miles from the base. Eventually, the two of them end up in Carmen’s home, and not even the ominous warning from Carmen’s grandmother that “trouble coming your way” can keep Joe from succumbing to Carmen’s charms.
 
In the scenario I’ve described, you’d expect for Carmen to be the kind of femme fatale that one normally sees in film noir from the 1930s and 40s, but, perhaps as a result of the enforcement of the Hayes Code, the film never seems to commit to that characterization. Instead, it is Carmen’s impulses, not her innate personality, that bring her misery, for she seems to be unable to put others’ needs before her own. Is this the trouble her grandmother warned about? Perhaps, but it could just as easily be Joe’s claustrophobic existence and growing jealousy, both of which made me recall the downfall of Othello.
 
As I describe this, I’m reminded of aspects of the movie that I greatly admired, yet for every stretch of film that builds the drama and increases the viewers unease and concern, there’s a musical number that practically grinds that tension to a halt and replaces it with gawkiness. Picture this. Carmen has just arrived at an out-of-the-way joint called Billy Pastor’s Café. Inside, the place is packed, there’s a live jazz band, and several couples are dancing feverishly. It is ripe with energy, alcohol, and the potential for both romance and seduction. A lively young woman starts to sing a song called “Beat Out Dat Rhythm on a Drum.” The sentiments seem appropriate; however, the rhythm better suits Bizet’s original heroine, who was gypsy, than a character much more likely to be drawn to the sounds and sentiments of 1950s jazz. Increasing this awkwardness are the voices, which, much like many of those used in early Hollywood musicals, were sung in a way that now sounds overly fancy and emotionless. The result is not amazement and allure, but bafflement and detachment.
 
Back in 1954, the film was a big hit, making almost $10 million at the box office and earning two Academy Awards nominations, one of which made Dandridge the first woman of color to be nominated for Best Actress. More recently, in 1992, the United States National Film Registry deemed it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” I agree with their assessment. However, not everything that is significant is a masterpiece, and not every masterpiece is significant. Being the first does not mean being the best, so while Carmen Jones should be lauded for the audacity of its casting, the unevenness of its musical numbers, as well as the obvious lip synching, weighs the film down, diminishes its strengths, and denies viewers the chance to fully appreciate the depth of its stars’ talents. In other words, Carmen Jones is a rarity – both a game-changer and a missed opportunity. I wish I liked it more. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
 
2 and a half stars

Review - Leap (2020)

August 7, 2026
 
Leap – China, 2020
 

Movie mentors have it made. Be they music teachers that throw their batons at students’ heads, ballroom dancing teachers substituting at an inner city high school, or – in the case of Peter Ho-Shun Chan’s Leap – a volleyball coach who pummels his players with hard-hit volleyballs until, sore, depleted of energy, and bleeding from the knees, they give them “30 good stops,” their methods, while unorthodox to say the least, will have been shown to have been just what a main character or team needs to go from good to great. And what words of wisdom they have. At just the moment when the players are at their lowest and facing imminent defeat, a few words from their wise guru is always enough to reignite the players’ passions and rather abruptly improve their skills. It’s a lie, of course (just look at the poor mentors trying in vain to inspire the other side), but it’s also downright cinematic.
 
Chan’s film is based on the real-life experiences of Lang Ping (played at different ages by Lydia Bai and legendary actress Gong Li), who as a young woman trained and played on the Chinese national team in the 1981 Volleyball World Cup before becoming a successful coach for both the U.S. and the Chinese Olympic volleyball teams. Also on this journey is an assistant coach named Chen Zhonghe (played by Yuchang Peng and Huang Bo), who begins the film a bit like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own and ending the film also like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. Early in the film, Chen learns that Lang cannot practice with the team until she successfully lifts 200 kilograms, a challenge that she completes after Chen suggests she quit. This has a rather curious effect. At one point during a practice game against the men’s team, Chen becomes so impressed with Lang’s efforts and energy that he blurts out, “If you can beat us, I’ll train with you for life!” One guess how that game ends.
 
In a more formulaic film, that line would culminate in a partnership of sorts, perhaps even start a romance. Instead, Leap jumps ahead to the World Cup championship, in which Lang’s team competes against Japan. It is a move that, in most sports films, would signal the arrival of the climax. The genius of Chan’s film, however, is that the game and the fervent efforts of the young women who play in it, have an additional importance, one similar to that of the 1980 Olympic Hockey Finals between the United States and the Soviet Union. In other words, victory would have incredible significance. It would be a sign that the past does not define them, that they can rise from the ashes of political turmoil and meet the challenges needed to move forward. In one of the most surprising moments of any Chinese film I’ve ever seen, the team’s coach, the same one who is intent upon making his players the best in the world regardless of the stress and strain his methods put on them, recalls the pride he felt when he played for the national team in 1966 and his utter heartbreak at the ten years that went by before any athlete could compete again.  His words fire up his team, and this time, I completely believe that they would.
 
And then Leap leaps ahead, yet the economic development that takes place in the coming years has a curious effect. It enables Lang to pursue an education in the United States, while Chen remains in China, eventually achieving the coveted position of head coach of the women’s volleyball team. Progress, it seems, separates them, and it is nationalism, not love, that ultimately reconnects them.
 
Alas, too much screen time is devoted to games whose outcome are already known or predictable and not enough to the evolving relationship and personalities of its two lead characters. Also, Leap cannot escape many of the familiar tropes of other sports films. Almost every sports film has an undervalued player that proves pivotal to the team’s success later on, a player that tries to quit only to return and try even harder, a coach who has to learn to overcome erroneous preconceptions, and a much-needed heart-to-heart when seemingly down and out in a game’s final moments. There are also scenes that are eerily reminiscent of more impactful ones from Remember the Titans and Mr. Baseball. Interestingly, the film makes a point of flashing onto the screen the names and numbers of all of the members of the team, which, I suspect, plays better if one is already knowledgeable of the players and their exploits.
 
However, when the film focuses on the question of the importance of sports to a nation that is no longer recovering from adversity, it is a revelation. I thought back to 1980, to a time when two generations, parent and child, believed that nuclear war could erupt at any moment, to those games that took on extra significance between they were us versus them, and then my mind flashed to the present day. Would a game played today resonate in the same way? Twenty years later, would people remember where they were when the winning goal was scored. I doubt it. Trauma, and a country’s recover from it, makes it important to rally as a country, to look for clear evidence of strength and resilience, and to be able to wave one’s national flag unflinchingly. Remove that, and what do you have? A quest for television ratings? A medal count that will be forgotten the next day? Fantastic stories about individuals and the obstacles they overcame? The possibility of endorsement deals and financial security? The times have certainly changed. (on Blu-ray from Imprint)
 
3 stars
 
*Leap is in Mandarin and English.
*It goes without saying that both Gong Li and Huang Bo give impressive, heartfelt performances.

Review - The Big Trail

March 1, 2026
 
The Big Trail – U.S., 1930
 

Prior to making Raoul Walsh’s The Big Trail, John Wayne had appeared in twenty-one films. That may sound impressive, yet in most of these he had been uncredited, playing characters with undistinguished monikers such as Lumberjack, Football Player, and Radioman on Surface. He had paid his dues, though, having started as a prop man and then earning an opportunity to appear in front of the camera. The Big Trail was supposed to be his big breakout. It isn’t hard to see why it wasn’t.
 
The Big Trail simply tries to do too much too quickly, and in doing so, it loses focus of its most interesting dramatic arc. On one level, it is a classic revenge tale. In the film, Wayne plays Breck Coleman, a young fur trader looking to avenge his former partner after he is murdered and their animal pelts stolen. On another, it is a romance. Early in the film Breck meets Ruth Cameron (Marguerite Churchill), a young woman traveling with her two siblings, and while their introduction will never be mistaken for love-at-first-sight (he kisses her thinking she is someone else), we’ve seen enough movies to know that adversarial feelings can change, especially when perilous circumstances are involved. Finally, The Big Trail is a dramatic adventure film, following a caravan of settlers as they make the hazardous journey from the banks of Mississippi over rivers, deserts, and slopping mountains, all in pursuit of better lives in the undeveloped West.

 
With three storylines operating concurrently, it’s crucial for the film to find the right pace in order to enable the investigation and the romance to develop naturally as the caravan moves along. For example, different circumstances along the journey could bring Breck into contact with new individuals, one of which would eventually utter something that raises his suspicion. This could happen at the same time as Breck works to correct Ruth’s initial impression of him. The film’s screenwriters, Marie Boyle, Jack Peabody, and Florence Postal, working on a story by Hal G. Evarts, however, take a different approach. In the first ten minutes, before the caravan even begins its adventure, they have Breck come across a clue implicating Red Flack (Tyrone Power), the leader of the caravan, as the prime suspect. Now, in such a situation, should Breck bide his time, observe his surroundings, investigate further, or should be confront Red immediately and put him on notice that he is on to him? If you answered the former, you have much more impulse control than either Breck or the film’s screenwriters.
 
And it isn’t just Breck that has this problem. The screenplay gives few characters any subtly. For much of the film’s first thirty minutes, the conversations that characters engage in are entirely too expository. Characters explain their backgrounds, their intentions – both pure and self-serving, their roles on the upcoming journey, and their deceptions, and this robs the film of any potential suspense it might have otherwise been able to build. Fortunately, from the screenwriters’ perspectives at least, this leads ample time for the introduction of stock comic characters, such as Gus (El Brendel), an immigrant with a mother-in-law from hell; Zeke (Tully Marshall), the stock wise elderly character who speaks in at a slightly high-pitched voice and laughs at awkward moments, such as when Gus’s wagon rolls down a cliff; and Windy Bill (Russ Powell), who in numerous scenes hides behind wagon covers making cat calls. Zeke plays an important role later in the film, but neither of the other two adds anything to it, and removing them would have greatly improved the tone.
 
Nothing is allowed to simmer or develop in the film. In the same scene, Breck goes from questioning one of the people he suspects in his partner’s murder to immediately getting contradictory information from the other suspect, and then after Breck leaves, the two suspects have a conversation in which they admit to being worthy of Breck’s suspicion. In another scene, Breck learns that the Cameron family has been left behind because their wagon was immovable. Breck gets one his horse, rides to them, unhooks one wagon, and drives them back to the convoy. No difficulty, no drama. Even the film’s finale is anticlimactic, lasting mere seconds and building little in the way or tension or anticipation.
 
Part of what holds The Big Trail back is the performance of its lead, John Wayne. Wayne may have had a lot of experience in film by this stage in his career, but he seems to have reverted back to more amateurish techniques. He speaks far too quickly, and this prevents his characters thoughts from fully being expressed or for the audience to get the full impact of his words. For instance, in one scene, he describes a valley the he saw during his adventures, one that he thinks would be an ideal place for a settlement, yet he speaks so rapidly that the beauty and potential of what he is describing is lost. In another, he rallies the convoy with a speech in which he declares, “We’re building a nation!” yet the rapidity in which he utters his words do not allow his audience to express how stirred they are by them. And in his scenes with Ruth, when the moment calls for Breck to slow down and try to get his feelings across, Wayne rushes his words, and we can hardly fault Ruth for not being moved in the slightest. Wayne would eventually course correct, but it is hard not to feel that at this stage in his career, he was wrong for the very kind of role he would later excel at.
 
If there is one thing that works in The Big Trail, it is the narrative of the journey itself, the trek West in pursuit of something greater. There is real drama in the settlers’ battle against the elements, in their engagements with the Native Americans, which the film has varied success with, in the ever-present threat of death, in the daily maneuvering of the diverging landscapes, and ultimately in the realization that success, however costly, is upon them. At one point, the settlers, having survived an attack, bury their dead, and looking at the makeshift cemetery they erect and then abandon, I couldn’t help wondering how many such burial sites have existed over time. It is this aspect of the film that enables Walsh to demonstrate his directorial skills. The rest of the film is an ill-fated mix of speed and pauses, of rushed and unearned emotions, and of grand speeches that fail to land. In other words, The Big Trail is a big miss. (on DVD and Blu-ray)
 
2 stars

In Memoriam

February 12, 2026

In Memoriam – Michele Maria Cogley (April 22, 1947 - November 30, 2025)

Way back in the early nineties, I invited my mother to watch a movie that had received excellent reviews, which, in all fairness, was all I knew about it. My mother, always one to be drawn to creative works that excited others, readily accepted. For about two hours, there was complete silence, broken only by the occasional awkward sound of someone shuffling uncomnfortably in their seat. As the end credits rolled, I glanced over to her and asked her opinion. “Well, it was good,” she said, “but probably not the best thing to watch with your mother.” The film: Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant.
 
My mother passed away on November 30, 2025. She was 78. She experienced a world of constant change and chaos, and she adapted to it as best she could. By the time she was 25, she had seen the assassinations of both presidents and civil rights leaders, seen humans walk on the moon for the first time, and watched the horrors of war on live television in a way previous generations had not. She became a hippy, got married, had children, got divorced, and lived through years of financial and personal hardship. Throughout it all, she never lost hope that there was a brighter future ahead, and she worked hard to make that a reality.
 
In life, she remained her children’s biggest fan. Whenever one of us had a performance or competition, we could count on her being in the audience, whether that was an afterschool baseball game or an evening theatrical performance. In one of my earlier memories, I’m standing onstage holding up a cardboard cutout of a flower, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of her standing attentively in the right aisle. Over the years, she would collect numerous mementos of her children’s performances, from pictures to programs with our names in it. Some of these were from local productions that she also took part in.
 
And if you were her children’s or grandchildren’s friends, you were also hers. She took an interest in their lives and formed bonds with them. There are numerous pictures of her at parties thrown by friends of her children, and it was always at the invitation of the friend. If one of her children was in a relationship, she went out of her way to make that person feel welcomed and safe. That so many people from her children’s childhoods showed up at her memorial is a testament to those connections that she forged.
 
My mother loved movies. She and my stepfather saw every Woody Allen movie on the day of its release, and when VHS came out, she made sure we had a VCR and membership to local video stores. We were fortunate to have two local specialty movie theaters that showed films that the main movie theaters did not, and together we saw films like Hoosiers and Ran there, the latter of which inspired an interest in foreign films that remains with me today. She found joy in silly comedies like Troop Beverly Hills and was enthralled in the new worlds offered by Blade Runner and the Star Wars films. When Return of the Jedi came out in 1983, she went into the theater in between screenings and used paper plates to reserve the best seats in the house.
 
In her last few years, television was easier for her to engage in. She found intrigue in adaptations of novels she’d read in her youth, such as The Handmaid’s Tale, and she was drawn into fantasy worlds involving dragons, chivalrous heroes, and ancient gods, which naturally made Game of Thrones and American Gods weekly musts.
 
My mother eventually began teaching elementary school in San Francisco, and she applied the same devotion and dedication to her students that she had to her children. What the school district didn’t provide, she did, whether it was notebooks, pencils, short readers, or art supplies, and over the years, she collected boxes and boxes of teaching material the she created herself. She even co-wrote a book on activities for afterschool programs. She also made an effort to keep up-to-date with what her students were interested in. This meant knowing who the current WWF champion was, what Brandon, Dylan, and the rest of the 90210 gang were up to, and who had won the previous night’s local sporting events.
 
The years brought further change. Some – grandchildren, vacations, retirement – were positive. Others – children moving away, health problems – not so much. She visited Taiwan once after the birth of my daughter, and I’ll always remember the smile on her face as she held her for the first time. Over the years, she made an effort to forge a relationship with her, but it was difficult and ultimately only partially successful.
 
In a movie, this would have been different. There would have been a last-minute phone call or text that conveyed a healing or forgiving message. One of her children would find in her final diary entry an expression of pride in who that child had become or what they had made of their lives. In other words, there would be closure. In reality, true closure is rare, yet death has a way of bringing back the good, not the bad. I remember our walks in Taipei, our early discussions about love when I was a confused teenager unsure if someone would like me, the happiness she showed at my graduations, the embraces she offered my wife’s family, the way her students looked at her when she taught, the quiet moments when she wrote in her diary, and the way she could enlighten you with her insights into time, books, and movies. In our last conversation, we talked about my daughter’s swimming skills, and she marveled at her performance in a school competition. She felt such pride in the accomplishments of others. I’m fortunate to have known her.

Review - No Time to Die

August 14, 2025
 
No Time to Die – UK/US, 2021
 

I don’t know about you, but when someone like James Bond is almost blown up, then pursued through a seaside mountainous terrain by armed henchmen, and forced to terminate a relationship that had meant so much to him just a few hours earlier, I expect to see him storm back to his old job, demand to be reinstated, and immediately set off on a quest for revenge. What I would not expect is for him simply to relocate to a Caribbean island and just lay low for five years. And yet that’s just where we find him after the rather surprisingly long intro of Cary Joji Fukunaga's No Time to Die. Just how Bond has managed to buy such a lavish and technically advanced resort home is a mystery, but perhaps the salary of a British superspy is higher than I thought. All we know for sure is that, unlike the last time he played dead (just two films back in Skyfall), he has found a lot of time to stay in shape.
 
And this turns out to be rather fortunate, for, despite later proclamations that Bond (Daniel Craig) had disappeared and was assumed dead, his American friend Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright) shows up requesting his help apprehending a corrupt scientist linked to an attack on a biochemical facility by the forces of that ridiculous conglomerate Spectre. Luckily, before logic hits you and you wonder why Leiter didn’t recruit an American spy for the job, there Bond is, disembarking in Cuba, meeting an American contact, and entering a club whose customers seem to include mostly nefarious agents of Spectre, which Bond realizes seemingly because they are all well-dress gentlemen with earpieces on. A moment later, three such men stroll to the front of the dance floor holding an electronic eye, through which, from the comforts of his solitary cell in the U.K., Ernest Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is spouting something about how the occasion has finally brought him a chance to get revenge on Bond, who at that moment is conveniently standing in a spotlight in the middle of the dance floor. And yes, this is the second time in two films that Blofeld has delivered such a speech. Moments later, a light mist falls from the ceiling, maniacal laughter fills the room, and suddenly, all of Spectre’s agents begin dropping dead. The question now is: Has something gone wrong or right? Unfortunately, the answer is not nearly as interesting or credible as it should be.
 
Like the two most recent Mission Impossible films, No Time to Die has a villain problem – simply put, the antagonist is not credible enough. Dead Reckoning compensated this by including both the Entity, a kind of post-Singularity AI, and Gabriel for Hunt and his team to reckon with – one he can physical does battle with and the other he has to outsmart. No Time to Die, however, simply has Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek) and his scheme to implant humanity with specially-designed nanobots that can enter the human body through the slightest physical contract and kill subjects with specific DNA. First, Lyutsifer looks entirely too young to the figurehead of an international terrorist organization. For example, he could be Madeline’s classmate, yet he supposedly met her when she was no more than a teenager. Second, for Lyutsifer’s DNA attacker to work, he has to be able to get a person’s DNA, design a toxin for that particular person’s genetic code, and ensure that the toxin will be affective even if the contact is only external. That its intended targets die within seconds of making minimal contact makes this plotline even more incredulous.
 
Then there are his motives. Early Bond villains had rather lofty goals, the biggest of which was world domination, and in the Cold War world of the 1950s and 60s, this seemed credible enough. However, since the end of that conflict with the Soviet Union, Bond villains have had to have more realistic vendettas or motivations, for example, wealth or domination in a particular aspect of the government sphere. Lyutsifer is a return to the Bond villain of old, for after he successfully avenges someone who was clearly wronged, his motivation goes from personal to global, and it is unclear just what he hopes to get out a world in which everyone is carrying a virus.
 
Like many of the Bond films starring Daniel Craig, No Time to Die references Bond films which are not actually part of the current Bond’s timeline. The first such reference is to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the film in which Bond eventually married the daughter of the head of a criminal organization. To make this absolutely clear, we learn that Madeleine’s father was one of Blofeld’s assassins. The film even references Louis Armstrong’s theme song from that film when Bond tells Madeleine (Lea Seydoux) that they “have all the time in the world,” a remark that foreshadows the death of at least one important character in the Bond universe. The film’s finale appears to have been shot on the same seaside road as that film as well.
 
The second connection is to You Only Live Twice, which climaxed with a battle on a Japanese island secluded enough for Spectre to have been able to build a massive headquarters replete with removable dome. In No Way to Die, the presence of a terrorist organization on the island is explained with a remark of there having been “activity” on the island recently and to its credit, there is much of the island that looks as it did thirty years ago. (Why it still works is anyone’s guess.) I suppose these connections, in particular the use of Spectre as Bond’s foe, are intended as homages to the past or at the very least, are meant as service to Bond’s generations of fans. However, if a song makes an audience member expect tragedy and then tragedy occurs, its use demonstrates a lack of creativity, rather than nostalgia; it’s the equivalent of hitting rinse and repeat instead of holding out for that elusive original concept.
 
And this an unfortunate pattern of Daniel Craig’s time as James Bond. Too often these Bond films lacked direction. Casino Royale started the series well, but Quantum of Solace was handicapped by having to tie up its predecessor’s loose ends. It also features the uneasy sight of Bond accepting fate and waiting to die. Skyfall felt entirely too familiar, relying on the well-worn storyline involving a villain’s scheme that requires everything to go just right to be successful – similar to Loki’s in The Avengers. Then came Spectre, a film that, for all its faults, at least ended happily for Bond. He had finally found love. In a way, it was the first half of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and there is the problem. When you end a movie with a happy ending, a sequel can only undo that, and in truth, there’s not a lot of warmth in undoing what had seemed like a perfect ending for a beloved character. Alas, No Time to Die only offers further proof of this. (on DVD and Blu-ray)    
 
2 stars

In Memoriam

In Memoriam

July 29, 2025
 

                                                 Malcolm-Jamal Warner

                                           August 18, 1970 - July 20, 2025

A lot can be said about Malcolm-Jamal Warner. He was a child star who avoided the pitfalls of fame, and he did so while continuing to work steadily in Hollywood for over three decades. He was also a successful musician and had a rather well-received podcast. Like many people of my generation, Thursday nights started with The Cosby Show, and some of my most enduring memories of the show involve Warner’s character, Theo. There was his heartfelt plea to be accepted as a regular person in the series premiere, his learning that he was dyslexic, the gambit of emotions he endured when one of his teachers came to dinner. We watched as Theo’s face lit up at the start of relationships and empathized with him when many of those ended in heartbreak. In Theo, many young boys saw themselves.
 
When a celebrity passes away, it is common for remembrances of them to focus on their careers, on the films they made and the roles they made famous. Some writers, those fortunate enough to have met or known him, have written about the quality of his character and his concern for humanity. I never knew Mr. Warner, but what tells me the most about him is his 1988 book Theo and Me.

 At a time in his life when his career was on the rise, when he could have been enjoying all of the fun and excitement that comes with fame, he elected to respond to the many letters he was receiving from fans who saw in him someone who knew what they were going through and whom they trusted with some of their most embarrassing questions. What they couldn’t bring themselves to ask their parents or teachers, they found the courage to ask a young man whom they felt was one of them, and Warner rose to the occasion, addressing complicated issues such as depression, suicide, and sex.
 
I bought this book as a teenager, and what I remember most about it is the seriousness with which Warner took each letter and the issues it brought up. Throughout the book, he recognized the seriousness of the topics and, when offering advice, acknowledged that he had consulted with experts and carefully considered his words. He genuinely seemed to want to help young people get through what he knew first hand were extremely trying times. I had not written him, but when I heard about the book, it piqued my curiosity. As I read the book, Warner came across as a supportive friend, someone who understood my discomforts and the issues that teenagers were going through, and I felt better. He will indeed be missed.

Miscellaneous Musings

July 15, 2025

On a Conversation That Missed the Point

On June 23, 2025, The New York Times published a list of the best films of the first twenty-five years of the 21^st century, and as usual, it set off a wave of discussions, one of which was held on the Off-Menu portion of CNN's NewsNight with Abby Phillip. Simply put, it was a missed opportunity.

The tone was set early when, after running down the top ten films on the list, Abby Phillip proclaimed, “Some of those movies I have not heard of.” Looking at the list, this seems possible for at least three of the films – Spirited Away, In the Mood for Love, and Mulholland Drive, all of which had limited theatrical releases. Of the other seven, Phillip commented on four of them, The Social Network (#10), Get Out (#8), Moonlight (#5), and Parasite (#1), and the other three, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (#7), No Country for Old Men (#6), and There Will Be Blood (#3), have appeared of numerous best-of lists or nominated for Academy Awards and therefore were heavily discussed on news shows after their nominations were announced. The problem was that Phillip’s comment was greeted with laughter by at least one panelist.

Phillip then moved the conversation forward by asking each of her four panelists to state their favorite film from the list, a logical choice given the inspiration for the segment, and for a moment the focus seemed to be in the right place. First to chime in was Scott Jennings, who touted Anchorman (#85), which he opined should have been ranked #1, and Moneyball (#45). Bakari Sellers then went off the list and praised Love & Basketball, a film recently released on physical media by the Criterion Collection, a company known for releasing quality films. After that, Kierna Mayo lauded Black Panther (#96), which in her view was both a movie and a movement.

Then the conversation went slightly off the rails. Sellers, after some additional conversation about the importance of Black Panther, sought to make a point by asking how the panel felt about Parasite. After a brief silence, he added, “And that is my point.” Exactly what point he was making remained unexplored because the conversation segued to the best superhero movie with Jennings touting Iron Man and looking slightly incredulous when it was mentioned that the film had not made the New York Times’ list. Sellers then seconded Jennings views on Iron Man and added that Black Panther’s $1.6 billion “speaks for itself,” interestingly implying that box office performance equates to quality, a curious claim when one considers some of the other members of the billion-dollar club. When the conversation returned to Parasite, Phillip remarked that she had seen it, but did not remember it.

The show finally returned to the panelists’ favorite film from the list. Christine Quinn talked up Ratatouille (#73) before remarking that she did not share the Times’s praise of The Social Network. She also brought up Brokeback Mountain (#17) and commended the way it turned the notion of a cowboy movie on its head. The final panelists, Pete Seat, then slightly dismissed the list when he declared that his favorite films tended to be comedies and entertainment that “never gets old.” His choice was, in his words, “a little artsy” – The Dark Knight. He supported this description of Nolan’s film by applauding Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

What followed continued the conversation’s general trend. Jennings lamented the absence from the list of Wedding Crashers and stated that he did not recognize most of the films on the list. Seat said he’d seen 20 of them, so, by that measure, 80 were films he did not consider deserving. There was both criticism and praise for Moonlight, Phillip stated her approval of the ranking given to Get Out, and eventually someone mentioned that this year’s Sinners should be #1. There was then a discussion of Hollywood’s lack of comedies and whether television shows such as Married with Children could be made today.

It was Kierna Mayo who finally offered a bit of introspection when she wondered what it meant that they did not know about so many of the films on the list, and she offered a solution. Maybe, she suggested, there needs to be a different marketing apparatus, suggesting that the reason the panel did not know about so many of these films was that the studios did not do their job properly. Phillip was quick to dismiss this idea, however, deriding the films as “artsy-fartsy” and saying that they were too inaccessible to average viewers. Jennings went even further by proclaiming that he “did not want to think so much” or “feel stupid” when he watches a movie. The segment ended with comments on the ethnicity of many of the directors on the list, one panelist showing disbelief over the exclusion of the John Wick films, and a look of incredulity that Brett Ratner’s Rush Hour has been omitted, despite the fact that the film had been released in 1998.

It was truly a sad affair. Of the 100 films on the list, 21 are foreign films, 3 are documentaries, and 4 are animated films. That leaves 72 films, and the majority of them are fairly mainstream. They include Superbad, Gravity, Minority Report, Gladiator, Interstellar, the third Lord of the Rings film, Black Swan, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ocean’s 11, Oppenheimer, Little Miss Sunshine, Kill Bill Volume 1, Whiplash, Punch-Drunk Love, Inception, Borat, Mad Max: Fury Road, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, Bridesmaids, The Departed, Arrival, Her, and The Wolf of Wall Street. These are hardly art films, yet if you had just watched the panel’s discussion, you’d be forgiven for getting the impression that the Times had selected only independent and foreign films that had opened in few theaters and completely eluded the public’s attention.

Admittedly, not all of the films on the list worked for me, and some of my favorites were not included. However, no list is definitive. The same week that the New York Times released their list, Rolling Stone published theirs. In fact, a quick Google inquiry reveals similar lists from IMDB, the BBC, Rotten Tomatoes, the Hollywood Reporter, and Cinema Sugar. These lists are essentially recommendations, pleas for a group’s favorites not to be forgotten in these times of streaming services and series dumps. Those that compile these lists are simply asking readers to give them a chance.

It’s fair to ask whether the panel on CNN had actually read the entire New York Times’s list. When I first tried to access it, only the top ten was available to non-subscribers; now, thankfully, the rest can be viewed online. Below each film, readers can click “I’ve seen it” or “I want to watch it” and at the bottom of the screen is a tally of the number of films you've seen. I was surprised to learn that I had seen 94 films on the list. My six blind spots are Lady Bird, Toni Erdmann, Tar, Aftersun, Fish Tank, and Memories of Murder. Guess which option I clicked for these films.