The Fall Guy (2024) ****
Drew Pearce co-wrote Iron Man 3 with Shane Black and deftly channels Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and The Nice Guys with the script, but David Leitch can't bring any weight to the story as director. The tone is all over, trying to be a romance and an action film and a mystery and a behind-the-scenes Hollywood comedy all at the same time. Nothing is taken seriously, so there's no stakes, no drama, and no sense of danger or thrills. It does succeed as a comedy though, and as an ode to the art of the stunt performer, and the actors seem to be really enjoying themselves. In other words, it's the same kind of forgettable but entertaining fluff as Bullet Train, but it could have been so much more. I never watched The Fall Guy TV series, so I can't compare.
The Spitfire Grill (1996) ***
A female ex-convict takes a job at a small town bar and grill and befriends two co-workers. A little character drama that tries to weave together too many subplots in a town where everyone is needlessly hostile to one another. The real plot doesn't kick in until a third of the way through, and the script needs a lot of tightening, but the performances are good, esp. Marcia Gay Harden.
Savage (1973) ***
This is a decent pilot for a series that never happened about a TV journalist investigating a crime starring Martin Landau. Spielberg directs it like he has something to prove and it doesn't feel like TV movie at all (compare the studio scenes at the opening with the air traffic control scenes in Close Encounters). It's substantially better than his previous TV movie Something Evil, but it's also just as forgettable in the grand scheme of things. It's certainly no Duel.
The Entertainer (1960) ****
A terrific kitchen-sink drama with a remarkable performance by Laurence Olivier as the head of a show business family, but the movie feels off-center. It puts the focus on Joan Plowright, but she has little drama herself and kind of just observes everything, and this puts everyone else at a distance instead of grounding the film. Throw in multiple character relationships and a hard-to-hear soundtrack where lots of dialogue gets lost (even the subtitles are full of "inaudible") and you have a busy movie that takes some effort to absorb. That effort is rewarded though with a richly observed world and a stellar cast.
Time (2020) *
Nominated for Best Documentary, it's a portrait of a family whose father is in prison and the wife's efforts to get him released, but it's so painfully short on details and includes so much mundane footage (such as waiting on hold for phone calls) that I'm utterly perplexed by the recognition it has received. It's a dreadfully boring and pointless movie. But hey, there's a few shots of Worlds of Fun near the beginning.
Class Acts (2024) ****
This is an eight-part web series about a rag tag acting class making a movie (a continuation of a series started 15 years ago, but you don't need the back story). Brandon Rogers is an amazing comedic talent, like a modern John Waters, that's forged a career on Youtube. It is ribald ADHD-driven madcap fun with outrageous characters and a deft ability to keep the raunchy humor and crazy plot twists rolling with even a touch of genuine emotion.
Phil Collins: Drummer First (2024) ***
A Youtube documentary about Phil Collins' career as a drummer that's mainly for fans. I'm one of those fans. Phil Collins is kind of where rock and roll began for me. The doc is a little too full of other musicians heaping praise on Collins, and they talk endlessly about the In the Air Tonight drum fill, but it's a nice overview of his career that doesn't slight early Genesis. Drumming has famously taken its toll on Collins and he seems way older than 71, but his charm and humor occasionally reveals itself, and it's lovely to see the devotion of his son Nic. The documentary feels homemade and there's some notable things missing, mainly his bandmates Mike Rutherford, Tony Banks, Peter Gabriel, and fellow drummer Chester Thompson (at least Daryl Stuermer shows up!). There's also no music clips, so you just have to know all the tunes they're talking about, which of course I do.
The Entertainer