Tag: Jamie Demetriou

Cinema Dispatch: Jay Kelly, Heads of State, and Mountainhead

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

So, where was I before everything turned into pure chaos around here? Yeah, it’s been a while, so long story short, The Great East Coast Snowstorm of 2026 kept me away from the writing desk for over a week, which knocked me off of my routine which is why I’m still trying to catch up on 2025 movies right up until the end of February. Don’t worry, we’ll finish things up around here soon; I’ve just gotta find my groove again by watching a bunch of streaming movies, and I don’t even need to leave the house! Will these prove to be artistically significant and critically interesting feature films, or am I just looking for a way to justify barely getting off the couch for several weeks? Let’s find out!!

.

Jay Kelly

Jay Kelly is owned by Netflix

Directed by Noah Baumbach

Hollywood superstar Jay Kelly (George Clooney) was living his best life until his mentor (Jim Broadbent) has just died which has put him in a melancholic and nostalgic mood, so instead of going straight to his next project, he convinces his manager Ron (Adam Sandler) to let him travel across Europe in the hopes of seeing his youngest daughter (Grace Edwards), and spending some time with here before she’s too cool for her dad. It won’t be an easy luxury vacation, however, Jay will have to confront the decisions he’s made and the people he’s hurt to get where he is today.  Will he come out the other side with a better idea of who he is and who he wishes to be, or is too late for an old show-dog to learn new tricks?

Our first feature comes from the redoubtable workhorse of the streaming world, Netflix, and certainly seems to have the most aspirations of anything we’ll be talking about today. Big name stars, an award winning director, a story that’s about Hollywood itself, there is little doubt that Netflix is once again throwing a lot of money at the wall to see what awards it can garner, and while that sense of calculation is coldly persistent throughout the movie, it finds enough of a genuine heart for the cynicism to stay firmly in check. It’s a tale as old as cinema itself, from Sunset Boulevard all the way to Clerks III, but there’s a reason that this premise gets trotted out every few years as it appeals to the lived experiences of the people making it, and it’s fun for audiences to feel like we’re getting a peek behind the curtain; helped in no small part by Clooney’s performance as he makes a game effort at making Jay Kelly work as both a fully realized person and a commentary on his own life and career. It remains light and easy going with its plot, but Baumbach makes some sharp creative decisions with the editing and cinematography that gives it enough spark to be more than just a showcase for the actors; all of whom are giving solid performances, but aside from Clooney and Sandler, feel more like extended cameos than genuine characters. There’s a general uneasiness to the whole affair as it seems unwilling to confront its own Big Hollywood energy while turning its nose up at the industry. As much as George Clooney is getting credit for his performance in this, and for how much the movie seemingly revolves around his real world persona, he’s not listed as a writer or producer, and the low-key vibe to the whole thing means you could have slipped any number of aging actors into this role without having to change much at all. It’s not that the movie is inauthentic, because every movie is inauthentic. It’s that it tries to nudge us towards thinking that it has more to say than it ultimately does; failing to live up to the emotional impact that it’s trying to sell us on. Outside of a heartbreaking performance by the venerable Stacy Keach, it’s mostly just a fun ride with Clooney and Sandler who have affable chemistry but not much to say. It’s a movie that wants to be about the phoniness of Hollywood and the way it sucks people into a world of fantasy before spitting them back out, but its commentary can only be so biting given how deeply it’s embedded in the system it wants to critique.

3.5 out of 5
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Jay Kelly, Heads of State, and Mountainhead” →

Cinema Dispatch: Barbenheimer

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

When it comes to two movies releasing on the same day the narrative is usually that of a fight to see which one will top the box office, and yet this whole Barbenheimer deal has been one of mutual appreciation which seems to have worked out well for both movies as they had strong opening weekends on the back of solid word of mouth and the novelty of this double-feature. Was this quirk of good timing the perfect way to energize two great movies, or will the memes be more fondly remembered than the movies they were celebrating? Let’s find out!!

.

Barbie

Barbie and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Greta Gerwig

In the land of Barbies, where all Barbies are named Barbie and all Kens are named Ken, we follow Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) who is leading her stereotypical Barbie life of fun, empowerment, and dance parties! That is until she starts having some strange thoughts that put her out of step with the rest of Barbie land and she has no choice but to go on a journey to the Real World to find the little girl playing with her that’s giving her all these bad vibes. Not wanting to be left out as he usually is, Ken (Ryan Gosling) manages to tag along on this journey and has his own quest of self-discovery that could perhaps impede Barbie from finishing her own!

Starting things off with sunshine and sparkles, we dive into the bright pastels and infectious optimism of Hollywood’s latest attempt to cynically turn brands into cinematic universes! Well, that’s a little unfair as the movie takes a fair number of risks in creating such a uniquely faithful adaptation; not to any specific work in the Barbie canon, but to the idea of Barbie as a brand itself. What could have easily been an insufferable exercise in cheerleading a doll line manages to have more than enough wit and creativity to rise above its baggage. Of course, it can’t truly be a subversive work given that it’s made with the explicit endorsement of Mattel, but Gerwig and Robbie were still given a surprising amount of room to tell an unconventional and mature story within this pink and plastic world. What I most appreciated was the utter absurdity of it all as it revels in its own dream logic to tell its story; never getting so abstract as to be indecipherable, but never letting unnecessary plot details grind the pacing to a halt or hold it back from telling a funny joke. It’s the kind of storytelling that works for a high-concept fantasy like this where at any moment we could pull back to find the whole plot being elaborately staged by a group of young girls at a sleepover, and if you aren’t going to make a Barbie movie a fanciful journey then why bother making it in the first place? There does seem to be a missed opportunity, however, as they don’t go the extra mile to make this a musical which, to me, would have catapulted it to the camp classic it’s clearly aiming to be. The movie has songs, singing, and even some dancing for good measure, but there’s only one musical number for a movie that is otherwise so bombastic, and on top of that it’s done by the Kens instead of the Barbies which leads us to the other issue I have with the film. Perhaps this is where the gender divide is the most obvious, but when all was said and done I found myself thinking more about the Kens than the Barbies; especially when it comes to Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie. Robbie is great in the role and she carries this movie from start to finish, but Gosling is a riot throughout and I found his arc to be the more interesting of the two. Barbie doesn’t really have much that she needs when the movie begins and the conflict she has to resolve is thrust upon her by circumstances outside of her control. It’s through the disruption of her routine that she does eventually realize what has been missing, but there’s not much to distinguish her as a Barbie of note compared to every other Barbie in Barbie Land. Ken on the other hand begins the movie with angst and flaws that inform his actions throughout the movie, and where the script ends up taking him is fascinating and utterly hilarious even if it’s the primary obstacle that our true protagonist has to overcome. Again, this may be my own biases talking here, but Robbie just didn’t come across as the most interesting character in her own movie and my favorite moments are things that happened around her instead of anything with her specifically. For me, the movie feels a little pulled back at points which are all the more noticeable given how extra the rest of the movie is, so while it doesn’t quite hit cult classic status as many were hoping for it to, it does end up being a great time at the movie and one that I can happily recommend to everyone with an appetite for something sweet.

4 out of 5
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Barbenheimer” →

Cinema Dispatch: Cruella

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Cruella and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Craig Gillespie

Now I’m sure that 101 Dalmatians is a classic and that Cruella is a great villain in it, but the fact is that it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I just don’t have any attachment or fondness for it.  What I DO have attachment and fondness for however is Maleficent which was a brilliant deconstruction of the fairy tale mythos and made an otherwise one note villain into a complex character with depth and pathos.  It’s clear that this is the template that Disney is using for this reimagining of Cruella De Vil with a sprinkling of Joker throw in for good measure, and frankly that’s what got me interested in this movie more than whatever connection it has to the Disney classic.  Does it manage to be another outside the box interpretation of the Disney formula, or are they scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to find anything else that people want to see again?  Let’s find out!!

There once was a girl named Estella Miller who had really awesome black and white hair and she knew that one day she would become a world famous fashion designer!  That or a professional MMA fighter because every day in school she was getting in fights with the boys and telling teachers off for being fools which eventually forced her beleaguered mother (Emily Beecham) to take her out of the countryside and to the town of London where she may find her place.  Along the way however, her mother makes a stop at an old friend’s house, and… well this IS a Disney movie, so it’s not long before things spiral out of control there and Estella is left an orphan through rather ludicrous means.  Without anywhere else to go, she heads to London and meets up with two street punks who take her in and as they survive the means streets of London by pick-pocketing for their bread; and this is BEFORE Thatcher’s Britain!   As is wont to happen, Estelle does grow up into a bright young woman (Emma Stone) who gets a job working for the biggest fashion designer in the city simply known as The Baroness (Emma Thompson) and for reasons that I shan’t spoil here, Estelle gets VERY cross with The Baroness and decides to assume an alter ego as the Fashionista Cruella who will take London by storm at the expense of her current employer!  With the help of her two ruffian friends Jasper and Horace (Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser), will she become the fashion icon that she always dreamed of with getting back at The Baroness as a fun bonus?  Is this Estelle just lashing out at the unfairness of the world around her, or perhaps is Estelle the mask that Cruella has been forced to wear this whole time?   Perhaps there’s a little Cruella in all of us; just yearning to tell the collective bosses of the world where to shove it!

“Today was a good day! Not GREAT, but you know, I think we accomplished a lot and we’ll do even better tomorrow!” “Ma’am, this is a Wendy’s.” “Yes. It most certainly is…”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Cruella” →