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!!

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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.

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