Month: December 2025

12/23/2025 – The Mastermind

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

In search of a contrast from yesterday’s extravagant blockbuster I needed to return to my independent roots with one of my favorite directors working today, Kelly Reichardt, for her new film The Mastermind.

Reichardt, known for her deliberate pace making her one of the current flag bearers for slow cinema, once again takes her turn in a genre of cinema that seems antithetical to her style. The Mastermind does for heist films what Night Moves did for ecoterrorist pictures, and Meek’s Cutoff did to the neo-western. In all three of the films, she deconstructs the genre removing it of all the glitz that normally attracts an audience and instead focuses on the characters and the impact that the inciting incident of the film has on their psyche.

James Mooney (played magnificently by Josh O’Connor) is a failed architect who feels emasculated by his parents Bill (Bill Camp) and Sarah (Hope Davis) who degrade him for being without work, and his wife Terri (Alana Haim whom I wish we saw more of), who provides for him and their two children. As an avid art connoisseur, James plans to steal four paintings from the museum with the help of a few friends. While the heist is initially successful, it is quickly pegged to James, and he is forced to leave his family and go on the run. While this seems like it would be a tense setup for a thriller, Reichardt does not focus on the active tension, but instead sits with Mooney as he comes to terms with his new reality.

Alana Haim as Terri frustratingly taking a call from James while at work

O’Connor plays the part of James as a lost soul who feels entitled to a life without working for it. He feels no drive to return to architecture but instead poorly plans a heist that is only initially successful because of security guards caught in a complete malaise and one of the people he hired to help with the heist brandishing a gun despite James asking him not to bring one. His entitlement around the theft is shown both by his borrowing money to pay his accomplices for the heist from his mother, and by his reaction upon having the stolen paintings in his possession. While his intension is to sell the paintings, he initially hangs them on his wall as if they should be his rather than in a museum full of people he thinks won’t respect them. Once he is forced onto the road this entitlement persists as he endangers his friends by staying with them, and then by first asking his wife to send money and finally resorting to stealing to fund his continued escape.

Josh O’Connor as James Mooney lost on the run

Reichardt enhances this feeling of masculine entitlement through the supporting characters James meets on the run. Other men give him the benefit of the doubt and want to support him while women resent his delusion and begrudge him for thinking they should help him. Additionally, the background of the setting (1970 America) calls out James’s privileged stance by including news footage of the time focusing on the terror that was the Vietnam War, and eventually this movement for peace and equality literally engulfs him to diminish his self-aggrandizing beliefs.

Reichardt has always been interested in gender dynamics, and she holds no punches in her takedown of masculine entitlement in The Mastermind. While the film is rather vicious in its subtext, it still manages to maintain that essential Reichardt calmness. She is not looking to spoon feed plot nor themes to the viewer, but instead she trusts that by using a well-known genre as a backdrop and filling it with contemplative moments an attuned audience is able to process the message behind the silence.

12/22/2025 – Avatar: Fire and Ash

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

Sorry that I disappeared for a couple of weeks. Life is never easy around the holidays. There was no way that I wouldn’t be back to talking about the only blockbuster of the year to which I was looking forward.

The thirteen-year gap between the first and second Avatar films represents me at very different points in my cinematic journey. In 2009, I was a college student who had recently been introduced to my first Kurasawa and Bergman films. Having my first taste of arthouse cinema, I was predisposed to be exceptionally snooty about Avatar. I saw it in theaters once and dismissed it for being a shallow story that had been told dozens of times previously. In 2022 when the Way of Water came out, my tastes had evolved. While I still tend to prefer an arthouse film over a blockbuster, I can appreciate a film that puts its craft before the screenplay as a piece of visual art. This led me to seeing Way of Water in the theaters three times because while James Cameron had not improved his screenwriting ability in the decade, seeing the visuals on the biggest screen and in 3D was a necessity for me.

Now three years later, I went into Fire and Ash excited to see what visuals Cameron would create to elate my eyes. While the Sully story is still not the strength of the films, I was also interested in some of the themes that Cameron was exploring and hoped that he would expound upon them.

With his third entry in the Avatar series, Cameron has distilled his skills to their purest form, and that is both a compliment and a criticism. To start with the negative, the screenplay to Fire and Ash is easily the worst of the three. Despite the three-hour plus run time, it still feels like the plot is rushing constantly, and many of the plot points that it is rushing to are rather groan worthy. It rehashes the exact same story between Jake (Sam Worthington) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton) as in the Way of Water, and every character seems to be rehashing things from that film to some extent.

On the other hand, Fire and Ash is one of the most gorgeous pieces of celluloid I have ever had the privilege to see. Having never fallen for the gimmick of 3D outside of a few exceptions, the Avatar films are the only two movies I’ve seen this decade in the 3rd dimension and would highly recommend it to anyone. While just as full of CGI as the average superhero film, Cameron manages to bring depth to his images by shooting them in a more naturalist framing and lighting than the other blockbuster which use a heavy reliance on wide shots with flat lighting to make the CGI easier. Cameron has always been dedicate to his craft and the crystal clear picture with the depth of 3D in the various Pandoran biomes has never been more spectacular.

The last thing to touch on is a theme that Cameron has been developing I the three films so far. Cameron has been interested in exploring the theme that diverse groups are stronger together than apart. Specifically, that the Navi and Humans when working together can overcome either individually. In depicting this theme, however, Cameron has flirted with and occasionally crossed the line into a traditional white savior narrative. This was especially problematic in the first and while it never fully escaped that narrative in the second, the third does lean back into the problematic side.

James Cameron continues to be appointment watching, and while this does feel like the weakest of the three Avatar films, I still cannot help but endorse seeing it on the big screen. Blockbusters made from a place of passion and desire to create art simply don’t exist anymore outside of his hands. While I can quibble with this film’s story and themes, it is still the most visually spectacular thing that I’ve seen in theaters at least since The Way of Water. Cameron has made a lifelong fan in me and I hope that we do get the 4th and 5th entries into this series.

12/03/2025 – Irma Vep (1996)

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

I am still an Assayas neophyte having seen his two Kristen Stewart pictures and nothing else, but during last month’s Criterion Collection sale, I blind purchased Irma Vep on his name alone. This film deals with a lot of French cinematic history that despite my love for their films, I am still not the best suited to do, but I will give it my best chance.

Starring Maggie Cheung as a fictionalized version of herself, Irma Vep is loosely the story of a French director René (Jean-Pierre Léaud) choosing to remake the 1915 ten-episode serial Les Vampires with Cheung playing the lead Irma Vep, an anagram for vampire. The film follows Cheung a non-French speaking actress from Hong Kong, on set for a few days of shooting where nothing goes as one would expect. Supported by costume designer Zoé (Nathalie Richard) who develops an instant crush on Cheung, she is thrown from moment to moment with little control over the circumstances.

The original Irma Vep (Musidora) from 1915’s Les Vampires

The plot synopsis is rather brief for this film, because there is A. very little of it, and B. what plot there is has next to no importance to the themes with which Assayas is wrestling. Irma Vep is an exploration of the history of French cinema, as well as its place in the wider film world in the mid-90s. As I warned up front, I am not a scholar in this department, so while some of my assumptions may be off base from what Assayas was attempting to get at, I am going to share my reading of the film.

Simply by being about remaking one of the cornerstones of French film history, especially a few decades before all movies became nostalgic look backs, Irma Vep declares that it wants to have a conversation with the countries past with the medium. Of specific note, after her first day on set, Cheung goes home with Zoé for an after-work party that she is hosting and runs across a pair of filmmakers discussing a film of theirs that Zoé calls “new” when they insist that the film is 20 to 25 years old. This is a clear allusion to the French New Wave and that what was revolutionary at the time no longer feels like where the country was cinematically. There is mention that the two directors do not make political films anymore which further emphasizes this move away from the New Wave and its aggressively progressive politics. While personally I don’t know that I buy this argument as films like La Haine had come out just a year prior, it is undeniably true that the New Wave had ended.

Maggie Cheung as a fictional Maggie Cheung as Irma Vep

Cheung represents France importing other cultures filmmaking into theirs. I think when also considering that in the miniseries remake Cheung’s character is instead American both represent a piece of the culture that France was being influenced by. From America, the hyperviolent indie boom (think Quentin Tarantino), and from Asia, Cheung herself was famous at the time from the Police Story and The Heroic Trio films (the latter of which is even played by René implying that is why he sought her out) represent France’s movement from Auteurism to more Vulgar Auteurism. Assayas also seems to worry that France’s film industry may be left behind as once a new director takes René’s place and does not believe a Hong Kong actress should play one of Frances most classic roles, Cheung flies not home, but to New York and Los Angeles to meet with Ridley Scott (who the real Cheung never worked for) and then her agent. This seems to be Assayas believing that America is the new home for the transgressive cinema that France had a near monopoly on for decades.

Filled with likely hundreds of references that I did not pick up, Irma Vep is an extremely deep text for being less than 100 minutes. While I would never recommend the film for someone looking to turn their brain off for a movie, if you are interested in engaging with the history that Assayas is grappling with, then Irma Vep is a French cinema 101, 201, and 301 rolled up into one unique package.

12/02/2025 – Bone Lake

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

The last few days have involved some rather high brow cinema, so today seemed like a good chance to prove that I don’t only watch 5 ½ hour Russian documentaries and heart throbbing dramas from auteurs. Today I reached into my 2025 back log and pulled out an aggressively sexual, sleezy horror film Bone Lake.

Starring Maddie Hasson (who despite what I originally thought is not Florence Pugh’s alias) and Marco Pigossi as Sage and Diego a couple whose relationship is on the precipice of change as Diego leaves his job teaching to work on a novel full time. They escape to a remote mansion on the titular Bone Lake only to have their weekend interrupted when it Will (Alex Roe) and Cin (Andra Nechita) show up as well having apparently rented the same place.

Marco Pigossi and Maddie Hasson as Diego and Sage

Mercedes Bryce Morgan directs the film by bringing a decent amount of style from the directorial chair for the journeywoman director. Her experience with directing music videos shows as much of the style is reminiscent of that medium. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of her direction, however, is that she kept her vision untouched resulting in a film that is slightly gorier and substantially sexier than most films in this genre made today.

A significant amount of digital ink has been spilled in the last handful of years on gen Z’s disinterest in sex in movies. While I understand and respect the desire for more platonic stories in film, there is something to be said about enjoying some gratuitously horny cinema. Sex is a part of humanity worth capturing, and a titillating one at that. Bryce Morgan does not shy away from this piece of humanity and understands its inherent entertainment value.

Sage reaching for the showerhead in the bathtub

While Bone Lake won’t be brought up in the coming months as the awards conversation takes over Hollywood, it still fills a niche that has been increasingly shrinking in the current cinematic landscape. Bryce Morgan created a film that was first and foremost fun entertainment without resorting to endless flatly lit wide shots on a green screen. When so much of what makes it to theaters is $300 million blockbusters shot so safely that they risk nothing and $5 million arthouse gems (which don’t get me wrong I love), Bone Lake proves that pure entertainment does not have to be so safe it might as well be hermetically sealed.

12/01/2025 – My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow

On By LaurenDolceVitaIn Movie Reviews, New Release Reviews, New Releases, New Releases, Quick Daily ReviewsLeave a comment

When films cross the two-and-a-half-hour mark, that tends to be the point at which terms like bloat and poorly edited come into play. However, there exists a second line somewhere around the four-hour mark where the running time becomes a feature of the film rather than a bug. When one is locked in a room with the same few people for such an extended period (and it is essential that films this long be watched in one day with no more than a few intermissions), they become less characters on the screen and more personal acquaintances or even friends.

Julia Loktev’s five-and-a-half-hour epic of a documentary My Undesireable Friends: Part 1 – Last Air in Moscow is one such example of a film using its marathon length as an important part of the filmmaking. Through five chapters, the film makes a record of the last five months of TV Rain, the last independent, oppositional news organization in Russia, before they were forcefully closed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While a 90-minute documentary on this subject would be informative and if done well impactful, Loktev’s decision to be as expansive as she was brought a power with it by getting to know a wide array of characters intimately.

TV Rain employee “foreign agent” Anna Nemzer

Loktev is a Soviet-born American filmmaker who in October 2021 traveled to Moscow to create a documentary about Russia’s recent branding of oppositional journalists as “foreign agents” including her friend Anna Nemzer. Anna introduces Loktev to the contributors to TV Rain for which she has a show. The handful of journalists who originally were branded with the foreign agent label wear it with a combination of pride and fear and many use the required language they are required to include on every post for ironic purposes.

One of the genius decisions of the film is the chapter flow. Each individual chapter is presented in a cinéma vérité or slice of life manner. Most of the filming takes place in cars, the TV Rain studio, or people’s apartments, and each hour-long section seems most interested in giving the viewer a peek into the life of an oppositional journalist at that exact moment in time. When zooming out, however, the film takes a concrete shape. The initial two chapters provide a background for the people and the circumstances which they inhabit. The third chapter is a bit of a break from the intensity. Things are obviously still tenuous in each journalist’s life, however even as the walls close in they are able to enjoy the New Years holiday together. That moment is a welcome reprieve before the final two chapters leading until the very moment that the TV Rain employees are forced to vacate the soon to be under siege studio and exile themselves from the country.

Ksenia Mironova

My Undesirable Friends is an engrossing cinematic experience starring journalists whom having spent so much time with I feel intimately connected to. The film teaches about the horrible human rights violations Putin is behind while keeping things personal. I cannot wait to dedicate another five plus hours to the topic when part II is released.