Deadbeat Dad

Film: Frankenstein (2025)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on various players.

I am not shy about my love of the work of Guillermo del Toro on this blog. I don’t often go to the theater, but Frankenstein is the first live-action del Toro film in a bit that I haven’t seen on its release. GdT has a reputation of loving his monsters. He’s also someone who, if you go through his films carefully, always makes humans worse than the monsters he shows us (or makes the standard vampires worse than the mutant vampires in Blade II). This is a running theme for him, so Frankenstein was an inevitability.

The running wisdom of the original Mary Shelley novel is that smart people realize that Frankenstein is the doctor, not the monster; wise people realize that Dr. Frankenstein is the monster. Del Toro is going to stay true to this. Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) is absolutely the villain of this story, while the creature (Jacob Elordi), while monstrous in appearance and sometimes in action, is clearly being depicted as an innocent.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2024

The Contenders:

A Complete Unknown
Conclave (winner)
Emilia Perez
Nickel Boys
Sing Sing

Jane's Addiction Approves

Film: Caught Stealing
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on gigantic television.

Long-time readers of this blog will know of my constant enjoyment of film noir, including neo-noir. I also tend to like Darren Aronofsky, although he is frequently hit-or-miss. Aronofsky doing noir has a lot of potential, so Caught Stealing is a film that certainly had a great deal of potential. I feel the same way about Austin Butler. I haven’t made my mind up about him completely as an actor, although he certainly has the look. Say what you will about him, he’s certainly pretty.

Caught Stealing takes place a couple of years before the turn of the last century in New York. Former baseball standout, San Francisco Giants fan, and dive bar bartender Hank Thompson (Butler) has his life not so much together as built the way he wants it. He works at night, drinks too much, and spends his nights after work with his nurse girlfriend Yvonne (Zoë Kravitz). Everything is fine until his British punk neighbor Russ (Matt Smith) asks him to take care of his cat while he goes back to London to visit his ailing father.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 2024

The Contenders:

Anora (winner)
The Brutalist
A Real Pain
September 5
The Substance

Bad Bunny

Film: Caveat
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on gigantic television.

There are times when, to follow a movie where it wants to go, you have to give in to some ridiculous premises. Caveat is a movie like that. There’s going to be a moment early in the film that beggars one’s ability to willingly suspend disbelief. If you can manage to deal with the fact that the movie demands that you accept something completely ridiculous, you’re in for some good scares and an interesting concept.

Isaac (Johnny French) is a man with significant amnesia and no real direction. This makes him the perfect person for a job from his landlord, Moe Barrett (Ben Caplan). Barrett has a niece named Olga (Leila Sykes) who suffers from bouts of catatonia and lives by herself in an isolated house. Barrett wants Isaac to go and stay with her for a couple of days. Essentially, if she is left on her own for too long, something bad can happen to her, because she can zone out for long periods of time. Isaac agrees to the job, especially because he’s going to earn £200 per day.

I Think the Stripper Likes Me

Film: Anora
Format: Streaming video from Hulu Plus on Fire!

My goal was to get through my set of Oscar films by the end of the year and to save the Best Picture winner, Anora, for last. I did save it for last, but circumstances prevented me from getting it watched until tonight. There was a part of me that didn’t really want to watch it (although I was far less enthused about The Apprentice). There are only a couple of ways for this story to go, and really only one interesting one, and on the surface, the characters didn’t appeal to me at all.

To give the elevator pitch, Anora is a far more realistic version of Pretty Woman. Exotic dancer/escort Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) dances at a club and for a fee frequently has sex with her clients. One night, a customer named Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn) wants someone who will speak Russian with him, and Anora gets tapped. Vanya is in New York City from Russia alleged for school, but he spends most of his time playing video games and partying. How can he afford this? His father is a Russian oligarch and a billionaire.

What I've Caught Up With, December 2025 Part 2

When it comes to catching up on television, I knocked out some big shows in December. These include Batman: The Animated Series and the follow-up, The New Batman Adventures (same voice cast, more stylized art). I also finished both Twin Peaks and Twin Peaks: The Return. The biggest removal, though was Lucifer. It's a fun show, but as often seems to be the case, it started to drag once it moved from network TV to NetFlix.