A three-part take on family relations

 

  Director Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother offers a trio of short films, each with the texture and open-ended quality of a carefully crafted short story. 

   Avoiding big events and shocking plot twists, Jarmusch smartly explores situations that invite us to consider the unseen past that informs nearly every moment. 

  Jarmusch begins in New Jersey, where two siblings (Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik) visit their widowed father (Tom Waits), who lives in an isolated home at the end of a dirt road.

   Little is said, but much is suggested. Awkwardness prevails.

   Dad, for example, has a sizable collection of serious books but doesn’t seem particularly interested in ideas. Dad's house is disheveled, suggesting Dad isn't financially flush. Driver's Jeff has sent Dad money. Bialik's Emily once sent funds. When her husband objected, she stopped.

   Jarmusch saves a revealing flourish for the end, and we begin to sense a theme: Family ties persist, but it's unclear how much anyone ever knows anyone else. We feel the strain of situations in which everyone seems a bit trapped by the roles they think they should be playing, or maybe they use these roles as a method of concealment.

  That idea carries into the next episode, which takes place in Dublin. Charlotte Rampling portrays a successful author who's about to be visited by her two daughters (Cate Blanchett and Vicky Krieps). Once a year, they all gather for tea, a ritual the three seem to approach warily. Still, they do as expected.

   A woman of precise expression, Mom has carefully organized the table with carefully arranged small  cakes. We sense she may have been a mother who held her kids to high standards, the kind that result either in intimidation or rebellion. 

   Again the conversations are strained, the performances, revealing. Blanchett's Timothea appears timid and insecure; Krieps' Lilith behaves more freely, yet she lies about her accomplishments and relationships. 

   The last episode takes place in Paris. The discomfort of the previous episodes gives way to a more natural flow. Billy (Luka Sabbat) and Skye (Indya Moore) play twins who meet in Paris after their parents die in a plane crash. 

   Dad was flying a small plane in the Azores. Billy wonders if their parents might have survived had Mom been at the controls instead of Dad. Clearly, the twins have ideas about their parents' personalities. Whatever caused the crash, we sense that Mom and Dad approached life as adventurers.

    Billy and Skye have been apart for a while, but they know each other in the way only twins can. They're relaxed in each other's company, freely expressing affection.

    But did they know their late parents? Mom was white; Dad was Black. The twins let us know that their parents had a penchant for being unconventional, but they're seem to be talking about style. They were, after all, a couple who left the US for what they may have seen as the freedom of Paris.

   We also learn that Billy cleared the apartment where the twins grew up before Skye's arrival: The  mementos of the past have been sent to storage, perhaps to be forgotten. When the twins visit the apartment, it's empty. The emptiness feels poignant.

   Rich in subtexts that illuminate the gap between parents and their adult children, each episode includes a touch that's repeated throughout. Among them: mentions of Rolex watches (real or fake) or use of the British idiomatic phrase "Bob's your uncle," which means something like, "Well, that's that." 

   Father Mother Sister Brother begins with Anika Henderson's rendition of the song, Spooky, a great mood setter for a movie that serves as a welcome antidote for the frenetic rush that characterizes so many current movies, even the good ones. 

   Jarmusch, who hasn't made a film since 2019's The Dead Don't Die, doesn't hurry or dot every "i." He doesn't hide behind ambiguities but leaves it to us to search for the complicated history that underlies each of the movie's mini-dramas.

 

A tense look at one man's revenge

  Basing his movie on a true story, director Gus Van Sant returns to the 1970s with Dead Man's Wire, a movie about an aspiring entrepreneur who takes a mortgage company executive hostage. Tony Kiritsis (Bill Skarsgard) blames the mortgage company for crushing his chance to grab the brass ring. He wanted to develop a shopping center but defaulted on his loan.

  Some have seen Dead Man’s Wire as Van Sant’s ode to ordinary men whose ambitions are thwarted by those who hold the purse strings. Kiristis accuses the mortgage company of preventing him from signing prospective tenants.

   Whatever happened, one thing is clear: Dead Man’s Wire owes its success to the tension created by a device the kidnapper employs. 

  Kiritsis strings a wire around his captive’s neck, connecting it to the trigger of a 12-gauge shotgun. Errant movements or sudden jerks of the head will lead to the hostage’s death. For those moments when he can't keep his finger on the trigger, Kiritsis rigs a system that will do the job for him.

   Skarsgard plays the aggrieved Kiritsis as a “justice” seeker who's sometimes at war with his own decency. Kiritsis winds up taking his hostage to his apartment, where he treats him like a guest — albeit one who might not survive his visit. Kiritsis doesn’t seem to know whether to act like a host or a kidnapper.

    Early on, Kiritsis spells out his demands. He wants a public apology from the head of Indianapolis-based Meridian Mortgage (Al Pacino employing a Southern accent in a small role), $5 million in compensation for the profits he could have reaped, and immunity from any charges stemming from the kidnapping.

   For all his careful planning, Kiristis makes a major mistake at the outset. He didn't know Pacino's character, his original target, was vacationing in Florida. Kiristis had to settle for taking the man's son (an effective Dacre Montgomery).

    Pacino’s presence and the movie's premise have spawned comparisons to another hostage drama, Sidney Lumet’s brilliant Dog Day Afternoon (1977). For me, that's a stretch because Dog Day reflected a feverish cultural moment, revolving around a confused character whose motives were deeply personal. 

   Dead Man's Wire doesn't quite work as a broadside against capitalist greed or as a portrayal of a signature 70s moment . Kiristis didn't want to topple the system; he was keen to join it. Absent that, he wanted a payoff.

    A small supporting cast rounds out the tale. Colman Domingo serves up a sampling of '70s cool as a local DJ to whom Kiritsis looks for wisdom. Cary Elwes plays a local detective who tries to reason with Kiristis. The two have crossed paths before.

    Taken as a small, tautly strung story built around Skarsgard’s jittery performance, Dead Man’s Wire catches you up. Let’s call it a footnote of a movie that keeps you watching -- even if it doesn't prompt much by way of further consideration.

    

   

More wild, weird dystopian horror

  

 I admired 2025's 28 Years Later, a vividly realized foray into dystopian horror from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland. Director Nia DaCosta takes the reins for 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a continuation of the unsettling story Boyle effectively told.

   Sorrowful and keenly attuned to issues of mortality, 28 Years Later introduced Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), an isolated physician who built a bone temple from skulls as a memorial to those taken by ravenous, growling zombies who arrived thanks to the spread of the horrible Rage Virus.

     The first movie, an extension of 28 Days Later (2008), revolved around 12-year-old Spike (Alfie Williams), a kid who was learning how to hunt zombies outside one of many heavily protected "safe zones."

      Bone Temple begins with young Spike’s induction into the gang that rescued him from a zombie swarm at the end of the last chapter. Williams' Spike quickly learns that gang leader Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) is no savior; he’s a Satan-worshiping sadist who leads seven followers intent on torturing and killing everyone they encounter.

      If Earth has become hell, it's no wonder someone has emerged to do the devil's bidding.

     The plot eventually brings Jimmy and his followers into Dr. Kelson’s orbit. More on that later.

    More gory and graphic than the previous movie, Bone Temple leans heavily into its violence, including a sequence in which the gang invades the home of settlers and stages an assault that may bring the tortures of Texas Chain Saw Massacre to mind. Da Costa (Candyman) establishes a no-mercy approach to the bloody horrors inflicted by the Jimmys.

     For the record, Crystal ignores real names, calling everyone in his group "Jimmy."

     As the leader of the ruthless Jimmys, O’Connor gives an intensely gripping performance. Intelligent as he is twisted, Crystal radiates charismatic menace. Evil intentions and cleverness make him scarier than any zombie. 

    Meanwhile, Dr. Kelson tries to subdue an imposing Alpha zombie (Chi Lewis-Parry). Refusing to kill, Kelson hopes to demonstrate that the creature he dubs "Samson" can be dissuaded from ripping the heads off others and munching on their brains. 

   Kelson hooks Samson on morphine as he tries to develop a drug that will prevent the infected giant from killing without remorse. 

   Whacky as all this sounds, the budding relationship between Samson and Kelson provides some welcome tenderness, even a bit of eloquence.

     The screenplay by Boyle and Garland also finds dissension within the Jimmy ranks. Erin Kellyman portrays Jimmy Ink, a youngster who befriends Spike. She doubts the authenticity of Crystal's  claim to be the son of Satan. 

    It’s difficult to describe the movie’s most riveting, over-the-top sequence without spoilers. DaCosta puts on one hell of a show with what might be called a "bizarre production number." A substantial portion of a preview audience applauded the sequence's twisted comic energy, which is abetted by Fiennes, who serves up a display so crazed, it's difficult not to chuckle. Hildur Guonadottir's score deserves credit, as well.

    I don’t think Bone Temple, the second in a proposed trilogy, matches its predecessor, but it stands as a wild and weird sequel that holds its own, providing you like your horror served with a helping of gore.

This chimp knows how to chomp

  Primate, an early-year hunk of horror centering on the rage of a rabid chimpanzee named Ben, might be a victim of success. Not its own, but of recent horror movies that have taught us to expect a bit of thematic depth along with the expected helpings of gore.

  The same can't be said for Primate, which moves from one bit of deranged chimp violence to another, generating tension in rote fashion. Where's the deadly chimp? When will he pounce? 

  After a quartet of young women leaps into a swimming pool to save themselves (the chimp can't swim), the movie doesn't exactly overindulge on imagination. 

  Humans aside, Primate leans heavily on the drooling chimp to satisfy its blood list. (Movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba plays Ben.) 

   And, yes, Ben's a badass. Among other things, he rips the face off his vet. He also dislodges the jawbone of a crude young man who's probably in the movie to fill out its victim roster.

  At a fleet 89 minutes, the movie can be commended for efficiency and an attractive setting (a cliffside home in Hawaii) and for ... well ... I'm not sure what else.

  The screenplay explains how Ben came to live in the home of a family in which Dad (Troy Kotsur) writes popular novels. Early on, Dad welcomes Lucy (Johnny Sequoyah), his college student daughter who's on semester break along with a couple of friends (Jessica Alexander and Victoria Wyant). 

 Younger sister (Gia Hunter) becomes involved when Dad leaves to promote his latest book, and Ben continues his shift from sweet to sour.

   Kotsur, the deaf actor who won an Oscar for his work in CODA (2021), adds some plausibility, signing with his daughters. His character's deafness is used to up the tension in the late going. 

  Director Johannes Roberts' streamlined hunk of mayhem may appeal to those craving some no-frills horror. Otherwise, this slick offering follows a blueprint that offers jolts, gore -- and not much else.

The neighbor who might be a Nazi

 

Director Leon Prudovsky’s My Neighbor Adolf sets a story with Holocaust roots in Colombia in1960. Early on, we meet Polsky (David Hayman), a Jewish recluse who lost his family during the Holocaust. Polsky lives a solitary life outside a small Colombian town, but his bitter existence is disrupted when a new neighbor (Udo Kier's Herr Herozg) moves next door. Herzog’s arrival brings a major dose of seriousness to a movie that often sketches its moves lightly. Annoyed by his neighbor's dog, Polksy fumes. To make matters worse, Herzog's beloved German Shepherd  threatens the dark roses Polsky nurtures. A brief meeting between the two men convinces Polksy that Herzog might be none other than Adolf Hitler. Despite widely acknowledged reports of his death, the Nazi Fuhrer might be hiding in Latin America. Polsky, who claims to have seen Hitler in person at a Berlin chess match, goes to great lengths to validate his suspicions. For his part, Prodovsky creates an air of mystery around Herzog. Olivia Silhavy portrays Frau Kaltenbrunner, an authoritarian woman Polsky regards as Herzog's protector, a woman who might be helping to conceal Herzog's murderous past. The two men begin playing tense games of chess as part of Polsky's plan to expose his neighbor. My Neighbor Adolf  works hard to squeeze sentiment into its story about two lonely old men, eventually revealing the truth about Herzog's past. Both actors do their best to keep the story on track, but a Grumpy Old Men quality seems misplaced, and the screenplay becomes increasingly implausible.

Cruelty at a water polo camp

 

    Recently, I posted my l0-best list of movies for 2025. The Plague,  a vividly made and disturbing plunge into the lives of boys, was on that list and now is making its way around the country. 

Here's what I said: 

   Director Charlie Polinger’s The Plague sets its story at a camp where teenage boys establish a culture of camaraderie and cruelty. In tone and texture, The Plague resembles a horror film, but its ability to unsettle stems from its deeply rooted understanding of adolescent boys. Polinger’s imagery adds an unexpected eeriness to a story that focuses on 12-year-old Ben (Everett Blunck), a new arrival at a water polo camp where one of the boys (Kenny Rasmussen) is rejected for having the plague, a concocted story the boys take seriously. Rasmussen's character becomes an outcast. Steeped in anxiety, The Plague features a small performance from Joel Edgerton as a water polo coach. Credit Polinger with deftly depicting a part of youth most men would prefer to forget. 

    Some additional observations and notes on the movie: Kayo Martin gives a memorable performance as Jake, the malicious leader of the boys who taunt Rasmussen's character. Johan Lenox's  score enhances an ominous quality that mirrors and heightens feelings of anxiety. Edgerton's down-to-earth performance avoids the cliches that might have turned him into a savior of troubled boys.  Steven Breckon's cinematography offers underwater perspectives that help define the disquiet of an atmosphere that can turn chaotic. 

  Technical artistry aside, The Plague stands as a classic about cruelty and estrangement that's perfectly embodied in Blunck's performance as a boy struggling to manage the conflict between basic decency and the need for peer acceptance.

  

Critics Choice Association 2026 winners

   The Critics Choice Association kicked off the 2026 awards season Sunday, giving its best picture award to One Battle After Another. The movie's director, Paul Thomas Anderson, also won awards for best director and best adapted screenplay. 

   Frankenstein, director Guillermo del Toro's reimagining of a horror classic led the field of winners, nabbing four awards, including best supporting actor for Jacob Elordi, who played the creature.   

  For the record, I'm a member of The Critics Choice Association. And, no, I wouldn't be surprised if you see many of this year's CCA winners on Oscar's podium in March.

Here's the full list of CCA winners: 

Best Picture: One Battle After Another

Best Actor: Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme

Best Actress: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet

Best Supporting Actor: Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan, Weapons

Best Young Actor or Actress: Miles Caton, Sinners

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Best Original Screenplay: Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another

Best Casting and Ensemble: Francine Maisler, Sinners

Best Cinematography: Adolpho Veloso, Train Dreams

Best Production Design: Frankenstein

Best Editing: Stephen Mirrione, F1: The Movie

Best Costume Design: Frankenstein

Best Hair and makeup: Frankenstein

Best Visual Effects: Avatar: Fire and Ash

Best Stunt Design: Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning

Best Animated Feature: KPop Demon Hunters

Best Comedy: The Naked Gun

Best Foreign Language Film: The Secret Agent

Best Song: Golden, Kpop Demon Hunters

Best Score: Ludwig Grandson, Sinners

Best Sound: F1: The Movie

Leftovers from the old year

I'm offering brief reviews of two movies (Anaconda and Goodbye, June) to go on record about movies that I hoped might offer diversion (in the case of Anaconda) and emotional heft (Goodbye June). Neither movie did either of those things, so here's my gloss on both them:

Anaconda

The end of the year usually finds critics weighing in on some of the year's more serious offerings, movies that probably will dominate the upcoming awards season. That wouldn't apply to Anaconda. Director Tom Gormican offers the sixth installment of the series, this one starring a usually reliable comedy crew that includes Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Thandiwe Newton, and Steve Zahn. The story revolves around a quartet of  old friends who reunite to rekindle the spark of enthusiasm they felt about the horror movies of their teens. Black, as a director of wedding videos, joins Rudd, as an actor with a dismal career, for a no-budget indie remake of their beloved Anaconda. Along with Newton, as a former high school pal, and Zahn, as another pal and cameraman, the principals head for the Amazon. Selton Mello appears as Santiago, the local hired as the movie's snake handler. Gormican mixes broad comedy and satire about movie cliches, but the movie's laughs may have gotten lost in the jungle, and its additions of horror seem like transfusions of gore into an already lost cause.

Goodbye June

And while we're on the subject of strong casts and weak results, consider Goodbye June, a Christmas movie that marks Kate Winslet's directorial debut. Winslet also appears on screen along with Toni Collette, Andrea Riseborough, and Johnny Flynn. They're siblings dealing with the imminent death from cancer of their mother (Helen Mirren). Dad (Timothy Spall) seems more interested in football and alcohol than in his family. Did I mention that the movie takes place at Christmas time and reaches a sentimental conclusion when grandchildren perform a Christmas play for their dying grandma? This one is meant to jerk tears,  but if I were going to shed any tears, they would be for a cast that deserved better material. No hard feelings, though. These accomplished actors surely will triumph anew.

He has everything -- and loses it

   

    Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), the main character in No Other Choice, has a lovely house, a beautiful wife, two children, and two Golden Retrievers. As a manager at a paper manufacturing company, he considers himself a valued and respected member of society. He's living his best life.

    You needn't be a fortune teller to predict that director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave) is setting Man-su up for a calamitous fall. Park deflates the balloon of Man-su's success with one piercing blow after another.

   When an American corporation takes over the paper company to which Man-su has devoted his life, he loses his job and, eventually, his sense of well-being. Man-su's confidence circles the drain, awaiting the last swirl that will flush everything he cherishes away.

     Getting fired in Korea, he says, is like having your head chopped off with an axe. After 25 years of loyal service, which included the coveted honor of "Pulp Man of the Year," Man-su discovers that in a bottom-line world, loyalty isn't always reciprocated.

      Park’s movie has a satirical sting, but taking a step back from the story helps us understand that in some ways Man-su has allowed himself to be played by the system. If he were in politics, he’d be called a useful idiot, someone who refuses to understand that he swallowed the corporate line while never imagining that it might give him serious indigestion.

     What’s Man-su to do?

      To begin with, he attends a support group where displaced men try to convince themselves that they'll be okay. They recite affirmations as they tap the side of their heads, as if trying to beat positivity into their otherwise depressed brains. 

      It's not enough. More extreme measures are needed.

      After suffering a series of humiliations, Man-su decides that he must kill a manager at a competitive company and then apply for the man’s job. But there's a problem. Because others are more qualified for the position, Man-su must murder them as well.

     Park transforms a capitalist horror story into a darkly comic exploration of one man's desperation in the face of relentless automated "progress."

     In every sense of the word, Man-su has been downsized. His wife (Son Ye-jin in a slyly amusing performance) returns to work as a dental technician, and Man-su winds up unloading trucks at a big-box store.

    Kim Woo-hyung, Park's cinematographer, brings bracing clarity to the movie as Man'su's indignities mount. The house will have to be sold; the family might have to move into an apartment. The dogs are sent to live with Man-su's in-laws. A job interview goes poorly. A neighbor turns up with a plan to purchase Man-su’s beloved house. 

     How humiliating it all is.

     The Ax, a 1977 novel by Donald E. Westlake already inspired a French version from director Costa-Gavras. But Park's broadly engaging approach to Westlake's work adds dashes of slapstick, off-kilter humor, and farce. 

      Two men (Lee Sung-Min and Cha Seung-won) stand in the way of Man-su's ability to land a status-saving a job at the Moon Paper Company, a business flush with cash because of a recently acquired Japanese contract. 

      Telling glimpses of the lives of Man-Su's rivals flesh out the story. Lee's character, for example, also has a lifestyle that will be difficult to sustain. His badgering wife (Yeom Hye-ran) mercilessly urges him to abandon his dream of returning to paper making.

     In large part, the jokey take on the Man-su's murderous scheming derives from his amateurish  incompetence. A struggle for a gun becomes a slice of broadly depicted silliness, absurd characters jostling with an absurd situation.

    Park manages the movie's tonal shifts easily, including tension when needed. No Other Choice has been assembled with the confidence of a master who has made a comedy about the way so many are drifting toward irrelevance.

    But not Park’s movie. By the movie's end, its relevance and stinging ironies have crystallized. I wouldn't insist that Park has made an anti-capitalist screed. As an artist, he's capable of looking beyond the moment he so ably depicts to explore the contours of human folly and its bitter consequences.