The following films are nominated for Best Picture this year. I hope that Train Dreams wins, and that it's re-released in theaters so that I get a chance to see it as it was intended. I expect One Battle After Another to walk away with the top prize. If you want to see the actual best film that I've seen in the last year, I suggest you bypass the list altogether, and check out To Kill A Mockingbird or Braveheart.
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Train Dreams
I ended up watching two of the ten films nominated for Best Picture at home this year. I watched Bugonia at home, and wished that I had a smaller screen to watch it on (can you watch movies on an Apple Watch?), and I also watched Train Dreams at home, and wished that I could have seen it on the big screen. Train Dreams is what I think a Terrence Malick film would be like, if I had the attention span to watch a Terrence Malick film. This film is not so much about what happens or why; rather, it's how it feels, it's the experience of being there with the main character, and whether something is real or is a dream, doesn't really matter. This is the film's strength, since it has such a rich and beautiful visual presentation. This could also be considered the film's weakness, it's natural to want answers, and closure, neither of which this film is willing to provide. I liked that the director, Clint Bentley, shows us beauty, lingers on the loving relationship between husband and wife, shares the goodness of a father teaching his child, and explores the complicated nature of friendship between men. What I didn't like was the hopeless sadness that followed the loss of everything good, and that there was no relief from the emptiness. It's good to finish a film like Train Dreams, turn off the television, and look around at all the things that God has given us that give hope, even when we encounter times of loss and sadness.
The Secret Agent
I saw The Secret Agent in Orlando this past Friday, and in contrast to my recent review of Sinners, the details of this film are fresh in my mind. I thought for sure that I'd seen the lead actor in something else, but I couldn't place him at the time of watching the movie. A quick search just now of IMDb reminds me that I saw Wagner Moura in Alex Garland's Civil War from back in late 2024. I'm glad that I didn't associate Moura with that movie, since I likely would have held it against him. Instead, I was able to watch The Secret Agent with impartiality, which was heightened by the fact that The Secret Agent is a foreign-language film, made in Brazil, by a director that prior to this film was unknown to me. All that to say that going into a movie-watching experience fresh, without any preconceptions or expectations, is a wonderful thing... if you end up liking the film. In this case I was not disappointed. The Secret Agent does exactly what it sets out to do, tell an interesting story about a unique individual, where the events that unfold happen in a way that is compelling, and propels the story. The writer/director, Kleber Mendonça Filho, has a very distinct vision, and while the action was reminiscent of Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and felt like an homage (if you pay homage to someone whose style itself is an homage, who are you actually paying homage to?), but that's OK, because it hit all the right notes*. The film was imperfect, as it was slow at points, had a weak ending, and unnecessarily had a thread involving college students doing research on the main character, but overall, this was an entertaining and well-made film.
*There was a surreal reenactment in the 3rd act, which felt out of place, but it's better to try something new than recycle old material.
Sinners
As I sit here on Sunday, March 15, 2026, it's been 5 ½ months since I saw Ryan Coogler's Sinners at the local movie theater. In that time, my memory of the film has faded, and I'm left primarily with my overall impression, and specific moments that burned themselves into my long-term memory. Some of the best films ever made take place in the South: To Kill A Mockingbird, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Help, and Black Snake Moan. These films don't simply use the South as a location, rather the history, the culture, the sound of cicadas, and the spanish moss draped from a cypress tree, all work together to add depth and texture to each film. And, it doesn't matter whether the film is a period piece or contemporary, there's the persistent weight that is a consequence of the sin of enslavement; even in the Coen brothers' lighthearted retelling of Homer's The Odyssey, there is an oppressive heaviness intrinsic to the Southern setting. I mention these facts only to establish that Sinners finds itself in good company, and continues the tradition of great films that came before. Sinners doesn't have the poignant power of To Kill A Mockingbird, but it does have something to say, so it's more in line with Black Snake Moan. In a similar way, Michael B. Jordan doesn't quite rise to Nicolas Cage's portrayal of the Kaufman brothers in Adaptation, but Jordan's dual role is interesting and nuanced in its own way. Likewise, Delroy Lindo is at the top of his game, and is representative of how good the casting and performances are; Coogler understands that all the pieces are important, from the acting, to the cinematography, the color palette, and the special effects - this film is masterfully assembled. Did you notice that I didn't even mention anything about vampires? That's because this would have been just as good of a film if it weren't for the vampires, which brings me to a point that I've made many times before: Vampire movies should not be about vampires. Vampires are dumb. Vampires are an allegory for evil in society that is parasitic and infectious, so a good vampire movie must know that. Coogler knows.
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Sentimental Value
Just a few film reviews ago I wrote about the movie F1, which is nominated for Best Picture this year, and now I find myself writing about another nice little film, which is also nominated for Best Picture, called Sentimental Value, directed by Joachim Trier, only this time there's no F1 racing to keep my mind from wandering, so hold on to your butts! What if instead of just being a philandering, detached father, the character played by Stellan Skarsgård turns out to be the same guy he plays in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? And what if Daniel Craig's reporter character from 'Dragon Tattoo showed up in the third act to write an article on the play that Stellan Skarsgård's character has written, and when he discovers Skarsgård's dark secret past, the surprise ending is revealed... James Bond has returned. What I just described is the opposite of Sentimental Value. If you're interested in a film where the house is introduced as a central character, then Sentimental Value is for you. If you're interested in my random movie idea, let's discuss financing my next project, and what producing credit you think is fair.
One Battle After Another
I wanted so much to like One Battle After Another, but there is one major issue, and a few minor issues that not only lead me to dislike the film overall, but keep it from perfection. Let me explain the last statement; I think that there could be such a thing as a perfect film that I just don't like, but it just so happens that in the case of One Battle After Another, the things that I don't like are also its cinematic sins.
Let's start with the minor issues:
1) The number of hills in the finale chase scene was too many. Would one hill have been enough? Probably not. Would two hills have been enough? Maybe. Is there any reason to have more than three hills? Absolutely not.
2) What did the protagonists believe in? Is it enough to simply oppose the antagonist to qualify as a protagonist? Perhaps, but that's shallow, and feels like a cop-out.
3) Leonardo DiCaprio plays a blundering pothead in the film, which unwisely disregards what Paul Schrader said about DiCaprio's last role in a Scorsese film:
I would have preferred Leonardo DiCaprio to play the role of the cop in Killers of the Flower Moon rather than the role of the idiot. Spending three-and-a-half hours in the company of an idiot is a long time.
The major issue:
The antagonist played by Sean Penn, sporting a high-and-tight haircut, as the Christian right-wing white supremacist Colonel Lockjaw, is a cartoon, and his group of secret society "Christmas Adventurers Club" cohorts are something straight out of an Austin Powers movie. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, knows how to create a compelling antagonist: Paul Dano as Paul/Eli Sunday in There Will Be Blood, and Vicky Krieps as Alma in The Phantom Thread - both (or all three, depending on your point of view) are powerful and complex characters, that are so wonderfully matched with their respective protagonist counterparts. So why are the sympathetic domestic terrorists at the center of this film having to fight a bunch of MAGA buffoons? It diminishes the position of the protagonist when the antagonist is depicted with such simplistic disregard. Of course I realize that my position on this subject may not be in line with the Hollywood elite, so don't be surprised if Sean Penn gets Best Supporting Actor for his performance... On second thought, be surprised if he doesn't.
Marty Supreme
Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme is filled to the brim with energy, charisma, and enough ping-pong to make Forrest Gump lose interest and move to running back-and-forth across the country. To top things off, the main character, played by Timothée Chalamet, meets a very burned-out Gwyneth Paltrow (I think that she was playing a character); their relationship isn't exactly something that they write fairy tales about. While the film does contain a Rocky-esque pursue-your-passions-but-don't-lose-yourself-in-the-process story, for the most part the story only exists to provide a vehicle for all the crazy things that happen to Chalamet's character Marty, in what seems to be a few wild nights. And that is the main problem with the movie, everything is so contrived that it ceases to be interesting. By the time Marty's bathtub crashes through the floor, crushing the elder gangster's arm, who just so happens to be bathing his dog in the floor below, I had already checked-out. If Safdie wanted to feature his screenwriters so prominently, he should have just made them the subject of the film, since it felt like each scene in the movie was simply one writer trying to out-do whatever happened in the previous scene. Before Safdie makes his next movie, he should order a 4k Blu-ray copy of The Wolf of Wall Street from Amazon, watch it in the comfort of his living room, and then think about his life choices. I'm not sure whether this will have an effect on his directing, but it couldn't hurt.
Hamnet
Chloé Zhao's Hamnet is one of those films that draws the viewer so close to its characters that we find ourselves captive to the emotional waves; from the butterfly highs of new love, to the despair and heartbreak of loss, the tempest of anger, and finally peace and hope that can only be truly appreciated after weathering the storm together. Zhao doesn't shelter us from any of those emotions, instead she moves us in closer, quite literally getting the camera as close to the subject as possible. This technique is most obvious in the final act, where the boundary between the stage and the audience is shattered. In a certain sense, the means and methods employed by Zhao are quite obvious, and she isn't subtle in her approach; nevertheless, I found the film to be incredibly effective.
Frankenstein
I believe that Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein should be considered the quintessential film adaptation, as it is true to the source material, captures the essence of the Mary Shelley's novel, and brings to bear the full force of del Toro's cinematic arsenal. Even if I hadn't heard an interview with del Toro, in which he proclaimed that Shelley's Frankenstein is his Bible, it would have been obvious that he has a great admiration for the book, and his filmography is in the same vein as Shelley's classic. While I could talk extensively about the effects, sets, cinematography, and all the other technical elements, instead I'd like to focus on the narrative progression: Just like my recollection of the book, the two main characters develop over the course of the film, in a surprising cross-over that is almost shocking, even if you already know that it's coming. The performance by Oscar Isaac as Dr. Victor Frankenstein (please see proper pronunciation here), and Jacob Elordi as Frankenstein's creation, are spot on, with the build-up to the cross-over moment building slowly, and then in a moment our perspective is forced to change. And, while we are surprised at first, it's not because of any narrative trick, or information that has been withheld, rather it's the preconceived notions that we brought to the theater, that we are now forced to face when presented with the facts. I was expecting del Toro to get the grotesque visuals, and gothic atmosphere of Frankenstein right (which of course he does), but I assumed that he would take more liberties with the story; to his credit, del Toro recognizes the importance of how the visuals depend on the story, and vice versa, which has resulted in an amazing cinematic realization of Shelly's masterpiece.
F1
I don't have much to say about F1. It's a nice, unassuming little movie, with some technically impressive Formula One (F1) race sequences. Brad Pitt plays a nice guy, who you can feel good rooting for, but you'd also be OK if he doesn't win, because this is one of those movies where everyone learns that there's more to life than winning F1 races. In no way do I mean to be dismissive of F1, it makes me happy to know that there are nice movies in the world, that don't hurt anybody's feelings, or challenge anyone's perspective, they're just nice to watch. That said, there just isn't much to discuss after watching a movie like F1, so my mind wanders to other things... Like, does it matter if they used practical effects for 84% of the film's visual effects, if I can't tell the difference between what is real, and what is computer generated? Why not bump it up to an even 90%, or was 84% the sweet spot? Then I start thinking about that Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fight video from a few weeks ago, and wonder why Hollywood hates the idea of other people using computers to make movies, but the somehow are OK with 16% computer generated effects in F1 - isn't that a little hypocritical? What if Youtubers promise to only use 16% fake Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fights in their movies, would that be acceptable? Then I think of Hollywood's adoration for Tarantino's Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, which featured Brad Pitt fighting Bruce Lee, and I wonder why Hollywood is OK with fake Brad Pitt / Bruce Lee fight scenes, but doesn't like Brad Pitt / Tom Cruise fight scenes? I just established that it can't be only the computer generated element, so Hollywood must just have something against Tom Cruise - it's probably because he was in Eyes Wide Shut, and they don't like the attention that film has been getting as part of the broader Epstein dialogue. And then I wonder, is perhaps Brad Pitt's character in F1 the same character that he plays in Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, just later in life? Perhaps F1 is worth a re-watch, to see if that hypothesis carries any water.
Bugonia
I dislike Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia less than his previous films. The Favourite, and Poor Things, were each atrocious, conflating ideas of beauty and goodness with reprehensible behavior and perversion. Lanthimos dials things back a little for Bugonia, and by comparison to his previous work, this film feels tame.
Bugonia is basically a post-modernist allegory; since we hurtled with reckless abandon past the point-of-no-return back in 2016, Lanthimos isn't sounding the alarm on climate change, rather he's letting us know what to expect. But don't worry, everything will be ok, because the world will be better off without us.
Unsurprisingly, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons both give great performances, playing their characters with serious intensity that would be perfect for a solid suspense film. Unfortunately, the final few minutes that each actor have onscreen effectively disregard the preceding film, and we're left with a final impression that squanders all the work that the actors put in up to that point.
If this had been my first Lanthimos film, I probably would forgive the goofy final act, but his past films tell us that this wasn't a misstep, rather he has contempt for his audience, and is a pessimist, so he believes that this is the ending that we deserve. The question is, why do so many people seem to enjoy this type of film? - and perhaps a better question is, why do I keep watching them?
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